ICCA Drafting Committee: Sourcebook for Logistical Matters in Procedural Orders

• Catherine M. Amirfar
• John Bang
• Lisa Bingham
• Philippe Cavalieros
• Utku Cosar
• Stephen Drymer
• Noiana Marigo
• Jim Morrison
• Dirk Pulkowski
• Jan K. Schäfer
• Ben Sheppard

by Lisa Bingham

The Drafting Committee for the ICCA Drafting Sourcebook for Organising International Arbitrations hosted a lunchtime session during the Miami Congress. The Chair of the Drafting Committee, ICCA Governing Board Member Kevin Kim, and ICCA’s Project Coordinator, Lisa Bingham, made a short presentation to the audience of ICCA members and other interested delegates about the Committee’s work in developing useful boilerplate drafting for logistical issues.

The lunch was a working session, so a Drafting Committee member at each table then set to quizzing his or her tablemates about: logistical problems they had encountered in international or domestic arbitrations; their reactions to the first draft of the Drafting Sourcebook (available on the ICCA website – www.arbitration-icca.org); and their ideas about how the Drafting Sourcebook and accompanying Checklist could be improved.

The Committee has been delighted by the interest shown by the Miami lunchtime group: many ICCA members have now joined the Volunteer Task Force for the project, and several of these members were kind enough to send written comments on the draft materials. The Drafting Committee is now revising the draft Sourcebook and Checklist, with a plan to publish in hard copy and online in 2015.

On 10 October 2013, the Drafting Committee for the ICCA Protocols for Fair and Efficient Arbitration met in Boston (and by telephone conference) to exchange and discuss the initial drafts prepared by the Committee.

The Drafting Committee’s work is progressing well, and we look forward to discussing the project with the wider ICCA membership as part of the ICCA Congress in Miami next year.

The goal of the ICCA Protocols project is to promote efficiency by establishing sensible default rules for many of the common logistical aspects of arbitration proceedings (from paragraph and exhibit numbering, to responsibility for engaging third party service providers and the technical requirements for electronic documents and videoconferencing). When the Protocols are published, counsel and arbitrators will be free to copy and amend them for use in procedural orders.

In July 2013, ICCA Secretary General Kap-You (Kevin) Kim contacted all ICCA Governing Board members, encouraging them to share their template first procedural orders and any other useful materials. The Drafting Committee has been delighted with the response to date, and wishes to make particular mention of the contributions received from Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez, Michael Hwang SC and David Williams QC.

ICCA is very pleased that many members have volunteered to participate in a Taskforce to review and comment on the work of the Drafting Committee when it is produced.