Practitioners of different forms of dispute resolution should work together to preserve London’s status as a global legal centre, the lady chief justice said today. In a keynote speech to open London International Dispute Week, Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill proposed the establishment of a London dispute resolution committee to share experience and provide guidance on developments, including new forms of alternative dispute resolution.
‘There is no reason why the courts, mediation and arbitration centres cannot come together in this way,’ Lady Carr told delegates from 48 different jurisdictions represented at the event’s main conference. Meanwhile the judiciary may need more training on options for mandating ADR.
Noting that the Law Commission’s proposed reform of the 1996 Arbitration Act had died with the last parliament, Lady Carr said she expected it to be revived in due course. She described the proposed changes as ‘evolution not revolution’. However one component, a new requirement, in the absence of agreement otherwise, was for arbitration to be conducted according to the governing law of the seat of arbitration.
Meanwhile the Court of Appeal’s ruling in Churchill v Merthyr Tydfil has given the courts new powers to mandate ADR. ‘Judges are increasingly likely to be called upon to consider whether to mandate the use of ADR,’ she said. Such decisions would cover not just whether to use ADR, but which form of dispute resolution would be best suited. Choices would include a plethora of new hybrid forms, with which the judiciary and legal practitioners will need to become familiar.
In the US, she said, courts are guided by a federal government guide to ADR. ‘Do we need to devise such a guide in this area? Do we need to consider judicial training to familiarise ourselves with the manifold forms of dispute resolution process now available?’
London International Disputes Week – established to reinforce London’s global status in the face of competition from new commercial courts and dispute resolution centres around the world – has attracted 7,000 delegates from 102 different jurisdictions.
