Browsing by Author "Engelberg, Annamari Elina"

The thesis covers the issue of Arbitrator's Independence and Impartiality, addressed from a comparative angle. The research is taking into account the national laws of England, Sweden and Finland, and the Institutional set of rules from the LCIA, the SCC and the FAI. First, the object of the research is to outline the bias assessment tests from each given country and arbitral institute and to discuss differences amongst them. As a starting point, the notions will first be set in the wider context of international arbitration, bearing in mind the link with the independence and impartiality regulations and safeguarding due process. Second, the focus will be on the recently revised IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration from 2014. The research will explain how this piece of international guidelines is regulating bias assessment, taking the practical application of the Guidelines into account. This will be done by introducing both the given national court's jurisprudence in which the Guidelines have been referred to and the reference to them from the arbitral institutions in question. The relevant differences in the Guidelines' application and the status given to them are therefore a topic of discussion. Third, it has been alleged that there has been an increase in the number of bias challenges used as a means of ‘black art’: as a way of either hindering the arbitral proceedings or as a losing party's technique to attack the award. Whether these challenges are actually increasing is considered from the given jurisdictions’ and institutes’ viewpoint.