Dr. Stavroula Angoura publishes doctoral thesis
The Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law is proud to announce that "The Impartiality and Independence of Arbitrators in International Commercial Arbitration" has been published. It is authored by former Research Fellow Dr Stavroula Angoura.
The book is based on her doctoral dissertation supervised by Prof. Burkhard Hess and defended at the University of Luxembourg. It investigates whether a common international public policy core exists about the concepts of impartiality and independence of arbitrators in international commercial arbitration. It addresses the different constellations of arbitrator bias as considered by the courts of various jurisdictions, especially France, England, Switzerland, Greece and Germany.
By introducing the ‘justifiable doubts’ to an arbitrator’s impartiality criterion and analyzing the above-mentioned national case law, the book categorizes instances that constitute a lack of impartiality with reference to and interpretation of the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration 2014. It also examines and systematizes how arbitrator impartiality can be contested at different stages of procedure: upon constitution of the arbitral tribunal, during arbitration proceedings, as well as after the rendering of the award at annulment, recognition or enforcement stage. While providing answers to the following questions: what must an arbitrator disclose; should an arbitrator investigate a possible fact or circumstance that may affect her impartiality, and to what extent; what is the relevance of the fact affecting arbitrator impartiality being obvious, well-known or easily accessible by the parties; under which preconditions could a party waive its right to contest lack of impartiality- implicitly or expressly.
This study focuses specifically on the institution of waiver and analyses how it prevents a party from contesting arbitrator impartiality at the next procedural stage, should it fail to follow the specific procedures and preconditions- an issue that is unexamined in the literature to date.
