The importance of international arbitration to the U.K. was recently confirmed by the U.K. government’s decision to include the Arbitration Bill in the first King’s Speech by King Charles III on the 7 November 2023 (the “Bill”). The Bill has now completed its first reading in the House of Lords and will be debated further by the UK Parliament during the current parliamentary session and is intended to become the Arbitration Act 2024 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
London remains one of the world’s leading centres for international arbitration and in 2021 was ranked as the most preferred seat for international arbitration. When an arbitration is seated in London, England or Wales, the law governing the arbitration (also referred to as the curial law or lex arbitri) is English law, including the Arbitration Act 1996 (the “Act”). The law governing the underlying contract in respect of which the dispute has arisen does not have to be English law for the Act to apply.
