The LCIA is leading the way on arbitration, says Barry Fletcher
It has been 16 years, a generation in international arbitration terms, since the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) last revised its arbitration rules, so the release in February this year of a “final draft” of the LCIA Rules 2014 was greeted with great interest and prompted much discussion within the ever-sociable arbitration community.
A little background
The focus of this article is the “general guidelines” for party legal representatives in the Annex to the LCIA Rules 2014, which, in accordance with the revised “preamble”, expressly forms part of the LCIA Rules 2014. The inclusion of a code of conduct for legal representatives within the rules is without any comparable precedent internationally as none of the other leading arbitral institutions (ie ICC, Swiss, SCC, DIAC, HKIAC, SIAC and CIETAC) have so far taken this step (although the ICDR included a “placeholder” provision in Art 16 of its revised rules in force from 1 June 2014).
There is often unhelpful uncertainty regarding the ethical rules that govern the conduct of lawyers in international
