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24 November 2023 / Chris Ward , Clare Arthurs
Issue: 8050 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Arbitration , Profession
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The Arbitration Act: If it ain’t broke…

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Chris Ward & Clare Arthurs survey (& commend) the Law Commission’s proposals for arbitration reform
  • Focused and practical reforms to the Arbitration Act have been proposed by the Law Commission.
  • The proposals are measured and do not attempt to fix something that isn’t broken.

In 1989, the chair of the Departmental Advisory Committee on Arbitration Law, Lord Justice Mustill, as he then was, recommended that the UK should not adopt the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration 1985. Rather, there should be a new and improved Arbitration Act, which would not simply be a classic exercise in consolidation.

Described by the late Lord Mustill as a ‘complete spring clean’ of English arbitration law, the Arbitration Act 1996 (the Act) is considered by many practitioners to represent the gold standard in lex arbitri, and the statistics do not dissent. English law is the governing law of choice in 40% of all global corporate arbitrations. A quarter of the Commercial Court’s cases are arbitration cases.

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