Scottish arbitration: a new era

Scotland has just played host to its largest ever law conference, thanks to the Scottish Arbitration Centre, which last month delivered the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (“ICCA”) 25th Congress in Edinburgh. The event involved more than 1,400 participants from across the world, making it the largest congress in ICCA’s 70-year history.

The congress saw engagement from various Scottish firms and practitioners, and shone a spotlight on Scotland as a legal and dispute resolution jurisdiction. We also estimate that the event itself was worth over £5 million to the Scottish economy. I take this opportunity to congratulate Brandon Malone, chair of the board at the Centre, and Andrew Mackenzie, chief executive, the driving forces behind ICCA Edinburgh, on the success of the congress and the resulting legacy for Scotland.

The Centre also took the opportunity, as host of this prestigious international arbitration event, to make several announcements and to signal a new era for Scotland and our arbitration industry.

Progressive rules

We published our arbitration rules for institutional arbitration, meaning that the Centre will now administer arbitration cases. This is the first time a Scottish-based organisation has offered this service, the London Court of International Arbitration being the main organisation providing this service in the UK. The hope is that those in Scotland and elsewhere looking to use institutional arbitration will now consider selecting the Centre to administer their arbitrations.

The Centre will continue to promote arbitration and Scotland as a seat and venue, provide an arbitral appointments service for ad hoc matters, offer arbitral hearing suites at our new base in Haymarket, and deliver training to the arbitration community. However, moving to administer cases is a significant milestone in its history.

Drawing on input from dozens of practitioners around the world, the Scottish Arbitration Centre Rules seek to build on the experiences of other arbitral institutions while striving to address some of the more pressing contemporary issues in international arbitration. They feature specific provisions encouraging greener arbitration and promoting diversity in the selection of arbitrators, and enshrine a commitment to data protection and cybersecurity.

Court supervision

Cases administered under the rules will be overseen by the newly formed Court of the Scottish Arbitration Centre. The President of the Court is Lady Sarah Wolffe KC, former Senator of the College of Justice, and the Vice President is Elie Kleiman, partner in International Arbitration at Jones Day in Paris. The other members of the court are Eliana Baraldi, Kaj Hober, Joyce Cullen, Norman Fiddes and Alice Leggat.

We also appointed Duncan Bagshaw, barrister and head of International Arbitration at Howard Kennedy in London, as our registrar. With the benefit of his extensive experience working for arbitral institutions, including as registrar for LCIA-MIAC in Mauritius, Duncan will fulfil the role of registrar under the rules, seconded from his day-to-day role as a leading practitioner in the field, and supported by Howard Kennedy’s specialist international arbitration team. Duncan will support the Centre and our executive to ensure that we can offer services to the standards of responsiveness and expertise expected by international users and arbitrators, immediately on opening and while it develops its caseload.

Case management solution

The Centre also launched Unicorn, its innovative electronic case management system for arbitration centres developed in partnership with Opus 2. Unicorn, named after Scotland’s national animal, will provide a centrally connected space for the case from the outset, giving users a secure, efficient and consistent way to access and share all case-related information and materials. Claimants, respondents, the tribunal and the institution can securely manage the exchange of all documents and notices via a connected portal, with built-in audit trails providing greater transparency and control. The new system streamlines onboarding and handover, automates manual administrative tasks, and provides analytics that enable the Centre to deliver its services efficiently and offer a modern connected experience to its end clients.

The Centre selected Opus 2 as developer given the firm’s track record in the field and its multi-award-winning technology. In 2021 Opus 2 supported over 400 international arbitration cases involving law firms, clients and other participants from more than 75 countries, and its solutions have also been used by more than 700 leading arbitrators globally. Now that we have the rules and an administrative infrastructure to deal with cases, we want to deliver our clients an innovative, efficient and first-class experience – and a solution that has cybersecurity at its heart and enables us to put our commitment to greener arbitrations into practice.

New chair

Brandon Malone has confirmed he will stand down as chair at the next board meeting. On behalf of the board and executive, I thank him for his tireless work to develop the Centre and put Scotland on the international arbitration map. Although his are large shoes to fill, I very much look forward to leading the Centre into this new era for arbitration in Scotland, and hope that solicitors will ensure clients understand the benefits of arbitration, including institutional arbitration administered by the Centre.