Pros And Cons Of Foreign Seated Arbitration

With Indian parties now able to arbitrate outside India, Sumeet Kachwaha and Tara Shahani look at the advantages and disadvantages, as well as how some parties may lose out by taking the dispute offshore.

In cross-border disputes, a neutral venue with a strong arbitral institute and a thriving arbitration community is generally agreed upon as the seat, and there are no doubt advantages in doing so. Like most issues, however, there is more than one side to the discussion.

Leading arbitral institutes administer arbitrations globally, not locally, and arbitrators usually belong to diverse jurisdictions, and are not tied down to any particular place. To illustrate, statistics from the International Court of Arbitration disclose that, in 2019, it administered arbitrations in 116 seats spread over 62 jurisdictions, with the arbitrators hailing from 69 jurisdictions.