The 1985 Rules of the London Court of International Arbitration

Abstract

THE new Rules of the London Court of International Arbitration (formerly, the London Court of Arbitration) operative from 1 January 1985,1 will warm the hearts of parties and lawyers who seek a rigorous arbitral process. Replacing the 1981 edition of the Rules, the 1985 Rules are an ambitious effort to design an international arbitration framework free of loopholes that plague other arbitration systems. Their draftsmen have manifestly had extensive experience in commercial arbitration and have sought to deal with all the frustrations and problems they have encountered. They have, in particular, tried to forestall every conceivable use of dilatory tactics by giving broad powers to the London Court of International Arbitration and to arbitrators to combat such tactics. Parties to contracts who assume they are likely to be reluctant defendants in any arbitration might, for that reason, wish to avoid these new Rules. ### I. Scope of the Rules The 1985 Rules are not a departure from but an expansion of the 1981 London Rules. They fill in much of what was left unstated in the 1981 version. In doing so, they take account, not only of experience with the 1981 Rules and of recent jurisprudence in the United Kingdom concerning arbitration, but also of the work carried out in the context of UNCITRAL to develop a model law on international arbitration. One can also see in the drafting of the new Rules an attempt to make them more ‘international’ in character and to appeal to a broader range of arbitration users. Whether the London Rules will, in practice, prove to be effective in remedying perceived deficiencies in the 1981 version of the Rules, whether they will create a more efficient arbitration framework and whether their appeal to arbitration consumers will increase remains to be seen. In the meantime, those in Paris who administer the …