Six cities in 24 days

3 July 2012

The SCC is constantly on tour to inform arbitration users of what it entails to arbitrate under the SCC Rules and to share SCC’s experience from administrating arbitrations in complex trans-border disputes, in energy disputes and in disputes involving states and state entities. The SCC’s unique role in the field of east-west related disputes has triggered many of the speeches made during June when SCC visited cities like Berlin, Brussels, Ekaterinburg, Hamburg, Kiev and Moscow.

Natalia Petrik, SCC Legal Counsel, spoke at the “International arbitration: a guide for an in-house lawyer” seminar in Kiev on 29 May 2012. The event was jointly organised by the SCC and law firms Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners and White & Case. Ms. Petrik provided first-hand information on arbitration in Stockholm and participated in a Q&A session with participants, comprised of in-house lawyers and private practitioners interested in legal and practical aspects of international arbitration under the SCC Rules.

Secretary General Annette Magnusson attended the Sixth Session of the Euro-Asian Juridical Congress in Ekaterinburg on 7-8 June 2012, where she spoke on “International dispute resolution – a modern success story of legal integration”. Ms. Magnusson’s presentation examined the drafting history of the New York Convention, UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration and UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules to explain how international dispute resolution has evolved and grown in recent years to the participating distinguished professors, teachers of law, judges and practising lawyers that attended the Congress.

Ms. Magnusson was also a panellist at the Second Annual Forum on Commercial & Legal Strategies for Successfully Negotiating Long Term Gas Contracts in Berlin on 13-14 June 2012. The Forum focused on how to not only negotiate but also to renegotiation long term gas contracts and attracted participants from the oil, gas, electricity/utilities and financial services sectors, as well as private practising lawyers specialising in these fields. The SCC has been the forum of choice to resolve many long-term gas disputes, and Ms. Magnusson shared the SCC experience with the audience, identifying key trends amongst these disputes.

In mid-June 2012, Marie Öhrström from Setterwalls, and former Deputy Secretary General of the SCC, spoke in Hamburg about the SCC experience of managing disputes with Russian parties at a seminar arranged by the Russian and CIS Arbitration Network (RCAN). The seminar was attended by a large number of German lawyers and in-house counsel. The discussions primarily focused on notification of Russian respondents, cost-efficiency and enforcement issues before Russian courts. The SCC was considered an attractive option by participants because of its leading expertise in East West dispute resolution.

In the beginning of June, an SCC Delegation met with representatives from the International Commercial Arbitration Court of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation (ICAC) to discuss areas of future cooperation. In the past, the SCC and ICAC have successfully arranged seminars and conferences in Moscow and elsewhere on current issues in international commercial and investment arbitration. Potential areas of cooperation are internships for employees at the respective secretariats, updating the list of arbitrators under the 1977 Optional Clause Agreement for Soviet-American contracts and joint events. The SCC Delegation consisted of Johan Gernandt, SCC Chairman; Einar Lundgren, SCC Vice Chairman; Linn Bergman, SCC Deputy Secretary General; Mikhail Petrik, Senior Advisor at Lindahl; Jakob Ragnwaldh, SCC Board Member; and Suvi Lappalainen, SCC Assistant. Representing ICAC was Alexey Kostin, ICAC Chairman; Konstantin Devyatkin, Director of the Center of Arbitration and Mediation; Ivan Zykin, ICAC First Vice Chairman; Alexey Zhiltsov, Member of the Presidium; Dmitry Podshibyakin, Deputy Director of the Center of Arbitration and Mediation; Mikhail Savranskiy, Deputy Director of the Center of Arbitration and Mediation; and Valeriy Frolochkin, ICAC Executive Secretary.

The benefits for Russian companies to arbitrate international disputes in Sweden under the SCC Rules where discussed at a conference in Moscow arranged by the SCC and ICAC on 8 June. The audience, consisting of business representatives, was very attracted by the efficient manner in which the SCC Secretariat is handling arbitration cases and the wide experience of the arbitrators appointed under the SCC Rules. The cornerstones of SCC practice, impartiality, efficiency and the preservation of confidentiality, are what make the SCC stand out in relation to other arbitral institutions according to Deputy Secretary General Linn Bergman. The SCC’s record of efficiently handling large disputes with political implications and the Swedish tradition of fairness and justice were other advantages highlighted at the conference. Speakers at the conference included Chubarov V.V., Vice-president of the RF CCI; Kostin A.A., Chairman of the ICAC; Zykin I.S., First Vice Chairman of the ICAC; Komarov A.S., member of the Presidium; Zhiltsov A. N., member of the Presidium; Aitkulov T.D., partner Clifford Chance, Moscow; Johan Gernandt, Chairman of the SCC Board; Linn Bergman, Deputy Secretary General of the SCC; Johan Sidklev, partner at Setterwalls, Stockholm; Kaj Hobér, partner at Mannheimer Swartling, Stockholm and Moscow; and Mikhail Petrik, Senior legal counsel at Lindahl, Stockholm.

The SCC was also present in Brussels on 21 June 2012 at the "Arbitration in CIS Countries: Current Issues" conference, organised by the Association for International Arbitration (AiA). The conference gathered about 50 arbitration practitioners specialised in arbitration in CIS countries from Germany, The Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. The topics of the conference included amongst others discussions about current development of arbitration praxis in Russia and Ukraine, enforcement of awards and the effects of bribery. Ms. Petrik presented the SCC experience of investment disputes against former Soviet countries, sharing common traits amongst CIS investment cases, like high rates of jurisdictional challenges, low occurrences of settlement and frequently non-participating respondents. Ms. Petrik also explained that the main share of the cases concern the exploration or purchase of oil, gas or gold. The seminar resulted in a book Arbitration in CIS countries, Current Issues, which included an article by Ms. Petrik on “Overview of the SCC Investment Caseload”.