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ARTICLE · 27 JULY 2020

Arbitrating Covid-19 Contract Disputes: 10 Takeaways

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I recently participated in a Mayer Brown webinar on "Arbitrating COVID-19 Contract Disputes" with Mayer Brown colleagues from London, Singapore, Frankfurt and Rio de Janeiro.

GlobalCoronavirus (COVID-19)
James Ferguson
James Ferguson
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I recently participated in a Mayer Brown webinar on "Arbitrating COVID-19 Contract Disputes" with Mayer Brown colleagues from London, Singapore, Frankfurt and Rio de Janeiro. In the webinar, we discussed the key issues likely to arise in arbitrations of COVID-19 contract disputes under both common law and civil law principles. As a starting point for the presentation, we described four examples of contractual disputes arising from the pandemic:

  1. A U.S. buyer backs out of a contract to buy a global retail chain after the seller closes multiple stores due to COVID-19.
  2. A Chinese company purchasing natural gas from a French energy supplier refuses to buy the contractually-required amount following a sharp decline in demand due to COVID-19.

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