International Financial Services Conference: Has London Met the Challenge?: Introduction

Abstract

THE BRITISH Parliament only reforms English arbitration legislation at intervals exceeding one hundred years; and the intermediate landscape since the late seventeenth century is littered with the rubble of good intentions. It seems therefore untimely that, within ten years, attempts are already being made to amend the Arbitration Act 1996. It also seems surprising, given that the 1996 Act was drafted (and redrafted) after unprecedented consultations with arbitration users and practitioners from 1985 to 1996, extending far beyond the UK Government's Departmental Advisory Committee on Arbitration (DAC). This was the broad consensus reached by many participants at the IFSL's Conference last December, organised by the LCIA, to mark the 1996 Act's tenth birthday, from which two thoughtful papers are reproduced in this issue from arbitrators from abroad well acquainted with London arbitration. Moreover, with much relief and no little acclaim, the House of Lords had only recently confirmed the 1996 Act as a fresh spirit in the law and practice of English arbitration, re-striking a new balance in the relations between parties, legal representatives, arbitrators and the English Court – with the latter's role significantly reduced [ Lesotho v Impregilo [2006] 1 AC 221). All this is to be contrasted, however, with the reaction from certain quarters to the Harris Report, also reproduced in this issue with a critique from another well-known commentator from abroad. There are two principal causes. The first is section 67 of the 1996 Act, about which all that can be said has been said (and more). The second and more significant is section 69 of the 1996 Act permitting parties, under strict conditions, to appeal from an award on a question of English substantive law. It is, of course, an old issue of great historical significance in the history of English arbitration. Section 69, in …