Arbitration Chambers Hong Kong was launched on 19 September to bring top industry players under the one roof and to offer Asian clients, especially those from China, access to international arbitration talent.
“International arbitrations can be held in any city and governed by any law, so it’s possible that there could be arbitrations based in Hong Kong between a Chinese party and a foreign party, and could be conducted in Portuguese, Chinese or the English language, and under any law,” Gavin Denton, an arbitration specialist who founded Arbitration Chambers Hong Kong, told China Business Law Journal. “So what we are trying to do is to create a chambers whereby people can have access to experienced arbitration counsel and arbitrators with a range of legal and language skills.”
“It’s very difficult for legal practitioners in mainland China to know experienced arbitrators from all around the world,” Denton added, so the chambers provides a platform “where you can go onto the website and see what sort of special skills and people we have from all around the world that can assist in your arbitrations here in Asia and elsewhere”.
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Arbitration Chambers Hong Kong brings together experienced arbitration counsel and arbitrators. Tenants of the chambers are independent and work separately from each other.
And the family is already planning on expanding. “It seems that there are a number of arbitrators around the world that wish to be associated with Arbitration Chambers Hong Kong.” Denton says in the next months they will also be accepting some leading international arbitrators as door tenants. Door tenants are individual arbitrators who are based overseas.
Denton is also interested in the huge potential in China’s second- and third-tier cities. “Arbitration Chambers Hong Kong will run a number of events every year up in the mainland in order to help train Chinese practitioners in different aspects of international arbitration.”
CIETAC opens first ‘outside’ branch
The China International Economic and Trade Arbitratrion Commission (CIETAC) inaugurated an arbitration centre in Hong Kong on 24 September.
Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen said the centre will help strengthen the city’s position as an international centre for dispute resolution.
Yuen said the branch is the first arbitration centre that CIETAC has set up outside the mainland, and the commission’s choice speaks for its recognition and support of Hong Kong as a regional centre for international arbitration.
“The establishment of the CIETAC Hong Kong Arbitration Centre, coupled with the existing arbitral institutions in Hong Kong, including the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre and the Secretariat of the ICC International Court of Arbitration (Asia Office), will place Hong Kong in an even stronger position to meet the demand for high-end arbitration services,” Yuen said.
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