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8. Spoilt for choice: Where to arbitrate?
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27 Feb 2025 Insight
Reports and highlights - By Tomas Furlong, Reshma Nair and Elizabeth Kantor

Parties face a number of choices in arbitration: governing law, seat, choice of institution and likely constitution of the tribunal. Each of these decisions ultimately determine the procedural process and conduct of any future arbitration. This page compares how arbitration users around the world have made those choices in international arbitrations before major arbitral institutions – the ICC, LCIA, SIAC, HKIAC and the ICDR. 

Click on the drop-down boxes below for interactive charts under each title. 

 

This note looks at statistics reported by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) and the American Arbitration Association's international arm, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution for the years 2021-2023, and where available. Reports for the year 2024 were not available at the time of preparing this note, but will be considered in subsequent updates.

Comparative statistics confirm these institutions continue to see most of the world's caseload – these are also the institutions for which detailed statistics are available.  

Other institutions, like the SCC (The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce) are of course also prominent but do not publish the same detailed data points.  Yet others, like CIETAC (China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission) and VIAC (Vietnam International Arbitration Centre) publish detailed statistics but deal primarily with domestic arbitrations and/or smaller case values and have therefore not been compared (though that may be set to change as these institutions continue to gain traction).

The data sets present averages over 2021-2023, unless otherwise stated. Note that institutions do not report uniformly on the value of arbitrations they administer, and are not always consistent in distinguishing their reporting on various factors between domestic and international arbitration, pending or newly filed cases, or in administered arbitrations. The above figures have therefore been based on a best read of the available data. Figures may also be affected by efforts to round up or down calculations. 

 

Key contacts

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Tomas Furlong

Partner, Singapore

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Reshma Nair photo

Reshma Nair

Senior Associate, Singapore

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Elizabeth Kantor photo

Elizabeth Kantor

Knowledge Lawyer, London

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Legal Notice

The contents of this publication are for reference purposes only and may not be current as at the date of accessing this publication. They do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. Specific legal advice about your specific circumstances should always be sought separately before taking any action based on this publication.

© Herbert Smith Freehills 2025

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International Arbitration Tomas Furlong Reshma Nair Elizabeth Kantor