The ICC has released its case statistics for 2013 which demonstrate another strong year for the ICC and international arbitration in general, having maintained a high number of newly registered cases involving parties, seats and governing laws from across the world. In this post we take a look at some of the key statistics and how they reflect on the continued strong growth in international arbitration.
As trade, industry and investment becomes increasingly complex and cross-border in nature, so to do the disputes that arise therefrom. As the ICC's caseload shows, international arbitration continues to be the go-to-choice for resolving those disputes and the ICC continues one of the world's leading arbitration institutions.
Overall caseload
It has been another busy year for the ICC with 767 new arbitration cases registered in 2013. This represents a consistent trend of a significant number of new ICC cases - there were 759 new cases registered in 2012.
Geographic spread
New cases registered in 2013 involved 2,120 parties from across 138 jurisdictions worldwide. This continues the trend from 2012 and demonstrates the on-going attraction of ICC arbitration for the resolution of cross-border disputes.
An interesting development has been the increase in the ICC's handling of cases involving states and state-owned parties from 75 in 2012 to 86 in 2013. The largest proportion of states involved in such cases were in Africa and Central and Eastern Europe.
Europe continues to be the most popular destination for arbitration seats, with Paris and London continuing their place as leading arbitration centers. Singapore is the leading non-European seat for ICC cases with almost twice the number of cases as Hong Kong. Interestingly, Stockholm has made a come-back as a place of arbitration, reappearing in the top 10 for the first time since 2007.
Choice of law
In 90% of cases registered in 2013, the parties had included a choice-of-law provision in the contract out of which the dispute had arisen. There was no single strong preference for the law of one jurisdiction. However, the most popular governing law was English law, accounting for 15.64% of clauses in the parties' contracts.
Other key statistics
There was a strong focus on construction and engineering (18%) and energy disputes (15%). This seems to reflect the continued growth in these sectors, in particular in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
36% of the cases registered in 2013 were worth a value in excess of US$10 million, up from 33% in 2012. This demonstrates a continued trend in the increase in high value disputes being resolved by ICC arbitration.
Following the introduction of the ICC's emergency arbitration provisions in 2012, there was a three-fold increase in the number of emergency arbitrator appointments from 2 in 2012 to 6 in 2013.
For further information, please contact Craig Tevendale, Partner, Daniel Waldek, Senior Associate or your usual Herbert Smith Freehills contact.
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