HKIAC Statistics: demonstrating the steady strength of Hong Kong as a seat for arbitration Early in the Year of the Tiger, the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (“HKIAC”) released its Year of the Ox statistics for 2021. Their full report is available here,...
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, restrictions on movement forced the legal sector to consider its options for hearings without diluting the inviolability of an award. Stopping or delaying legal proceedings for a physical hearing in the future was not a...
A new set of rules for the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (ACICA) came into force on 1 April 2021. The 2021 Rules replace ACICA’s 2016 Rules, and unlike the new years’ resolutions we set for ourselves (and which we have already broken),...
There are three things that have traditionally been the backbone of any international arbitration: paper, coffee and travel. Unfortunately, each of these things has a huge negative impact on the environment. Whilst coffee lovers will be relieved to learn that of...
Following hot on the heels of the entry into force of the Singapore Convention on Mediation on 12 September 2020, the Singapore International Mediation Centre (“SIMC”) and the Japan International Mediation Center in Kyoto (“JIMC”) jointly issued a covid-19 mediation...
While COVID-19 has necessitated physical meetings being conducted virtually, the Hong Kong Courts has remained conservative in allowing witnesses to give evidence via video-conferencing (VC). The following case comparison shows that Courts will accept health concerns...
Due to the Covid-19 crisis, the governments of all States have been forced to implement extraordinary legislative measures, with very different scope and effect on foreign investments. Many of these measures may breach the provisions contained in certain bilateral...
The forthcoming results season will show how COVID-19 has hit corporate Australia and capital raisings will inevitably follow. Right now we are in the eye of the capital raising storm. Listed entities needing COVID-19 equity came to market with great success in the...
Australia should look to British law changes for ways to improve our insolvency and restructuring procedures. Airliners may be grounded and national borders closed but there’s no stopping the cross-border transmission of creative responses to business insolvency...
Like every aspect of business, deal-making is rapidly evolving its own COVID-related tests, and antibodies. Business closures and limitations, spending deferrals, supply chain issues, tightening of capital markets and debt financing all affect earnings and the ability...
Company directors have welcomed the government’s coronavirus relief package. Company creditors may be a bit less enthusiastic (insert understatement emoji here). A major aim of the relief measures is to keep money flowing through the economy. However, there is a...
The temporary suspension of the ‘insolvent trading’ regime is a unique opportunity to see if general directors’ duties can do the job instead. Australia has one of the harshest regimes for insolvent trading in the world. But its laser focus on the interests of...
The drive towards clean assets is unrelenting, tech, med-tech and fin-tech will likely dominate, and an older, richer populace will support healthcare M&A. It wouldn’t be the first full week of January without a slew of predictions on global and domestic mergers...