Beijing Arbitration Commission

    On the afternoon of November 7, 2013, the seminar “Drafting of Awards in International Arbitration”, co-hosted by the Beijing Arbitration Commission (“BAC”) and the Tsinghua University School of Law was held in the international conference hall of the BAC. Professor Loukas Mistelis, Director of the School of International Arbitration, Queen Mary University of London, was invited to act as the keynote speaker at the seminar. The seminar was presided over by Lu Song, BAC arbitrator and professor of the China Foreign Affairs University. More than 80 persons were present at the event, including arbitrators of large arbitral institutions, domestic and foreign senior scholars, in-house counsels, partners of law firms.

Host Professor Lu Song	Keynote speaker Professor Loukas Mistelis

    Professor Loukas Mistelis is a renowned expert in the area of international dispute settlement, whose research fields cover many areas such as international commercial arbitration and litigation, international trade, investment dispute settlement and dispute resolution. As arbitrator of institutions such as the International Chamber of Commerce, International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, London Court of International Arbitration, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and Swiss Chamber of Commerce, Professor Loukas Mistelis was described as one of the “leading lights in international commercial arbitration” in 2006, who has dealt with a large number of international arbitration cases and has rich practical experience in commercial arbitration. He focuses on innovative empirical research into the attitudes towards dispute resolution of transnational enterprises and legal risk prevention systems of enterprises which has aroused widespread concern in the global scope of transnational enterprises.

    At the seminar, Professor Loukas Mistelis differentiated arbitration awards from procedural orders and other decisions of the arbitral tribunal. He emphasized that arbitration awards are final decisions affecting the rights and obligations between the parties and they are capable of being enforced. Afterwards he compared different approaches of France and America to arbitration awards, and introduced six types of arbitration awards. In addition, he elaborated on the application conditions as well as the important roles of the final awards, interim awards, partial awards, awards on agreed term (consent awards), default awards and additional awards in the arbitration practice. He also discussed with the participants about the potential problems that might occur with these types of arbitration awards in practice, such as different attitudes of different countries or states towards interim awards and the risk of the parties abusing consent awards to disguise money laundering.

    Based on the specific provisions on arbitration awards in different arbitration rules as well as his rich practical arbitration experience, Professor Loukas Mistelis presented to the participants the critical factors affecting the final formation of arbitration awards such as time limits for the award, quorum for the decisions of the arbitration tribunal, admissibility of dissenting opinions of arbitrators, as well as forms of awards. He presented his view on the approach of dealing with dissenting opinions of arbitrators, appropriate time limit of making an award, and gave some advices on the prevention of procedural risks. He also inspired the participants to think about the reference significance provided by the general character of the arbitration rules of different arbitration institutions.

    Afterwards, Professor Loukas Mistelis explained to the participants about the basic methods and practical skills necessary for drafting awards. He introduced the writing methods of the specific award parts: conclusion, reasons, allocation of indemnities and assumption of arbitration fees, as well as extraction of focus of dispute, award structure and selection of award contents. He also gave some practical advices to the participants on establishing an inventory of projects, using footnotes, and bringing in testimony of witnesses when drafting an international award. He emphasized the critical significance of arbitration awards to the entire arbitration cases and believes that accuracy and completeness should be given priority while drafting awards in international arbitration in order to ensure the enforceability of awards and to promote the final settlement of disputes.

    Finally, Professor Loukas Mistelis summarized and clarified the common mistakes in drafting of awards in international arbitration. Arbitrators were suggested to reduce omissions of words, delete reasons and factual basis irrelevant to the main focus of dispute, as well as clarify the differences between arbitration opinions, parallel opinions and dissenting opinions, etc.

    Professor Loukas Mistelis made a deep analysis and precise explanation of the writing skills and methods in the drafting of awards in international arbitration, which aroused strong interest of the participants. Under the direction of Professor Lu Song, the audience raised questions and discussed with Professor Loukas Mistelis. The seminar came to a successful conclusion with the warm applause of the participants.

Questions by audience	Seminar site

    The BAC remains in close contact with international leading arbitral and research institutions as well as international arbitration experts. The invitation of Professor Loukas Mistelis to give the seminar together with the Tsinghua University School of Law aims at spreading the forefront knowledge and experience of international commercial arbitration, expanding international understanding of Chinese commercial arbitration, as well as promoting the development of domestic commercial arbitration. Similar activities will be carried out in the future and are expected to attract more legal practitioners’ attention to the development of domestic commercial arbitration and promote the benign competition in domestic commercial arbitration field. Arbitrators, arbitration practitioners and all persons interested in diversified dispute resolution are welcomed to participate in subsequent lectures and seminars.