Al Tamimi & Company Advocates and Legal Consultants, one of the leading law firms in the Arabian Gulf region, hosted the Middle East New York Convention Roundtable which brought together regional and international legal experts to assess the degree to which the primary international convention for the enforcement of foreign arbitration awards, the 1958 ‘New York Convention,’ was being implemented within the Middle East.
A particular focus of the discussion was the need within the UAE for an Arbitration Law meeting the highest international standards. Those attending expressed the view that the UAE should avoid basing its arbitration law on those of its neighbors in the region – especially as many of those laws were widely considered to be outdated and confusing. All present agreed that the United Nations Model Arbitration Law was a well respected template that worked best when adopted with only minor alterations.
There was a strong consensus to the effect that the UAE ought to consult widely in an effort to produce a world class arbitration law surpassing all others in the immediate region and beyond. A draft new arbitration law was released for discussion by the government in September 2006. Critics of the draft law believe that it will not provide the security that foreign investors look for and that it will force sophisticated users to look elsewhere or insist on UAE parties agreeing to arbitrate abroad.
The UAE agreed to apply the Convention in November 2006. Amongst those attending were international lawyers and arbitrators from the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Singapore, the USA, Scotland, Ireland, France and England. Also present were members of the Dubai Courts and the UAE Ministry of Economy.
Under the Convention, commercial arbitration awards made in the UAE can now be directly enforced in 142 other countries. In return, foreign awards can also be enforced through the UAE’s courts. The New York Convention is considered a key instrument in the promotion of international trade and investment.
Other topics discussed included (i) the urgent need for additional judges trained and experienced in international commercial law and (ii) the desirability of introducing a more critical, as well as a more competitive, system of undergraduate legal training. The UAE’s increasing volumes of international trade and investment, its increasing importance as a regional arbitration centre and its promotion of specialist legal tribunals such as the DIFC Courts were all felt to require a much greater legal expertise than locally and regionally trained law graduates were currently being equipped to provide.
