The Evolution of Arbitration in the UAE

There have been a number of significant developments in the UAE over the past thirty years of course, but I would say that probably the two most significant are the UAE’s accession to the New York Convention in 2006 which was made without any reservations and just recently in 2018, the UAE has adopted a new Arbitration law which is built around the UNCITRAL Model Law and international best practice. I would say that those are probably the two most significant developments in the practice of international arbitration in the UAE. Dubai, of course, is a bit of an arbitration hub for the region. It is internationally now recognised as such. In 2010, I believe, the first application for the recognition of a foreign award under the New York Convention was made. It was an uncontested application before the Fujairah Courts and for the first time the Courts recognised a foreign award under the New York Convention. We were fortunate enough to be the applicants on behalf of the parties seeking enforcement on that case and in 2011, there was the first contested application for recognition of two separate DIFC-LCIA awards, London seated, where we were involved both in London and in Dubai in seeking to have the awards enforced under the New York Convention here in support of an Award Creditor and we were successful. So the UAE has obviously grown and matured as a jurisdiction in international arbitration and as a firm that has been around for thirty years in the UAE, we have been privileged to be there along the way, helping, I think, the jurisdiction mature both by acting as Party Counsel and also by having the opportunity to advise various committees and governments on the reform of legislation and regulation.