Running an International Arbitration: A Practical Guide

Document type: Guide Practice area: Litigation — Arbitration Jurisdiction: International Last reviewed: 5 September 2026

International arbitration looks like litigation and is not. The submissions are longer, the discovery is shorter, the hearings are more compressed, the tribunal is more active, and almost nothing happens on a schedule the parties did not negotiate.

For lawyers trained in American federal practice, the adjustment is genuine. The habits that work in a district court — broad discovery, motion practice, saving the best argument for trial — are counterproductive here. The habits that work are different: front-load the case, make every document request narrow enough to be granted, prepare witness statements as though they are the testimony (because they are), and treat the first procedural conference as the most consequential day of the case.

This guide walks the process in order.

PART ONE — BEFORE THE REQUEST

Step 1: Read the clause with hostile eyes

Before anything else, read the arbitration agreement as your opponent will.

• What is the seat? Not the hearing location — the legal seat. If the clause names a city without saying "seat," expect an argument.
• Which institution, which rules, which version? "The rules in effect at the time of the request" is standard; "the rules in effect at the time of the agreement" appears often enough to matter.
• How many arbitrators, appointed how?
• What is the language?
• What is the scope? "Arising out of" is narrower than "arising out of or relating to." A narrow clause invites a fight about whether your claim is inside it.
• What law governs the contract? What law governs the arbitration agreement? These can differ, and where the clause addresses only the first, the law of the arbitration agreement is itself a question.
• Are there conditions precedent? Negotiation periods, mediation requirements, cooling-off periods, notice requirements. Under BG Group plc v. Republic of Argentina, 572 U.S. 25 (2014), these are generally procedural questions for the tribunal — but a claimant who ignores them hands the respondent a preliminary objection and often a costs argument.
• Who signed? In group structures, the signatory is frequently not the entity with assets.

Step 2: Map the enforcement path before you file

This is the step most often skipped, and skipping it can make the entire arbitration pointless.

• Where are the respondent's assets? Corporate registries, property records, vessel and aircraft registries, credit reports, public filings, trade databases.
• Are those jurisdictions party to the New York Convention? Nearly all commercial jurisdictions are, but verify.
• How do those courts treat Article V defenses? Some are reliably enforcement-friendly; a few are not.
• Is the respondent a state or state instrumentality? If so, sovereign immunity from execution will be the central problem, and the assessment belongs at the front of the matter.
• Is the respondent solvent? An award against an empty company is a very expensive piece of paper.

Then decide whether to arbitrate at all. A claimant that cannot articulate how it will collect should consider whether a negotiated resolution now is worth more than an award later.

Step 3: Assemble the team

Lead counsel with international arbitration experience — not a litigator doing an arbitration. The procedural instincts are different.

Counsel at the seat, engaged early even if nothing is happening there. If a jurisdictional challenge or an interim application arises, you need someone who can appear tomorrow.

Counsel in each likely enforcement jurisdiction, at least for a preliminary view on what their courts will require.

Experts, identified early. Quantum experts in particular should be involved before the first memorial, because the damages theory shapes the document requests.

A project manager. International arbitrations generate enormous document sets across time zones and languages. Someone must own the chronology, the exhibit numbering, and the translation workflow.

PART TWO — STARTING THE CASE

Step 4: File the request

What it contains varies by institution, but generally: the parties, the arbitration agreement, the nature of the dispute, the relief sought, and — depending on the rules — a proposal on the number and identity of arbitrators, the seat, and the language.

How much detail? More than a U.S. complaint, less than a memorial. The request frames the tribunal's first impression and, at the ICC, informs the provisional advance on costs. A thin request that says nothing about the merits wastes the opportunity; a hundred-page request wastes money on a document that will be superseded.

Get the fees right. Institutions do not register a case until the filing fee is paid, and at the ICC the advance on costs is substantial and payable in two halves. A claimant that has not budgeted for the advance discovers the problem at an awkward moment.

Watch the clock. Limitations periods run under the law governing the contract. Where a limitations issue is close, confirm what act stops the clock under that law — filing the request, service, or something else.

Step 5: Constitute the tribunal

This is the highest-leverage decision in the case, and it deserves more time than parties usually give it.

For a sole arbitrator, the parties typically try to agree, failing which the institution appoints. Propose names; a party that engages seriously usually gets a better outcome than one that lets the institution choose.

For a three-member tribunal, each side appoints one and the two co-arbitrators (or the institution) select the chair. The party-appointed arbitrator must be independent and impartial — this is not an advocate — but a party may reasonably choose someone whose background makes them likely to understand its case.

What to research on every candidate:

• Published awards and decisions, where available.
• Academic writing and speeches — arbitrators reveal their views in print.
• Prior appointments: by whom, how often, in what kinds of cases. Repeat appointments by one party or one firm are a disclosure issue and sometimes a challenge issue.
• Availability. An arbitrator with too many cases is the leading cause of delay.
• Language and legal-culture fit. A tribunal that does not read the contract's language fluently will need translations of everything.
• Nationality. Most rules require the chair to be of a different nationality from the parties.

Challenges. Every institution has a procedure for challenging an arbitrator for lack of independence or impartiality. Bring a challenge promptly or lose it. The IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest — with their red, orange, and green lists — are not binding but are used by institutions and tribunals as a reference.

One practical warning. A challenge that fails leaves you before an arbitrator you have accused of bias. Do not bring one unless the ground is strong.

Step 6: The first procedural conference

Everything about how the case will run is decided here, usually within four to eight weeks of the tribunal's constitution. Prepare for it as you would for a dispositive hearing.

What gets decided:

• The procedural timetable — memorial dates, document production, witness statements, expert reports, the hearing.
• Document production: whether there will be any, on what standard, and in what format.
• Witness evidence: written statements, the scope of cross-examination, whether direct testimony will be permitted at all.
• Expert evidence: party-appointed or tribunal-appointed, sequential or simultaneous reports, whether experts must confer.
• Hearing format: in person, remote, or hybrid; length; allocation of time.
• Confidentiality and any protective order.
• Bifurcation: whether jurisdiction, liability, and quantum are separated.
• The seat, if the clause left it open.
• Language and translation protocols.

Come with a draft. The party that arrives with a proposed Procedural Order No. 1 and a proposed timetable frames the discussion. The party that arrives ready to react does not.

At the ICC, the Terms of Reference are drafted at this stage. They define the parties, the claims, the issues to be determined, and the procedural framework, and they are signed by the parties and the tribunal. They matter: a claim not reflected in the Terms of Reference may require the tribunal's authorization to introduce later.

Bifurcation deserves real thought. Splitting liability from quantum can save money if liability is genuinely doubtful. It usually adds a year if liability is likely. Splitting off a jurisdictional objection makes sense when the objection is strong and dispositive; when it is weak, it is a delay tactic tribunals recognize.

PART THREE — BUILDING THE CASE

Step 7: The memorial system

International arbitration runs on comprehensive written submissions rather than the American sequence of pleading, discovery, and motion practice.

A full memorial contains:

• A statement of facts, with citations to exhibits.
• Legal argument, with authorities.
• All documentary exhibits relied on.
• All witness statements.
• All expert reports.
• A statement of relief sought, with quantification.

The two common formats. Sequential: claimant's memorial, respondent's counter-memorial, claimant's reply, respondent's rejoinder. Simultaneous: both sides file on the same dates. Sequential is more common and generally fairer to the respondent; simultaneous is faster.

Practical guidance:

Front-load. The first memorial is often the most important document in the case. Everything after it responds. A memorial filed with a weak damages theory because the expert had not finished is a memorial that constrains the case for two years.

Write for a tribunal that has not lived with the file. Chronologies, dramatis personae, and clear exhibit references are not decoration. A tribunal of three busy arbitrators across three continents will read the memorial once carefully and thereafter navigate it.

Cite exhibits precisely. Page and paragraph, not "see Exhibit C-47."

Do not sandbag. Arguments withheld for the hearing frequently do not get made. The written record is the case.

Mind the length limits if the tribunal sets any, and if it does not, exercise discipline anyway. A tribunal that has to read four hundred pages to find the argument will find it less persuasive than one that finds it on page twelve.

Step 8: Document production

The standard. Most tribunals apply something like Article 3 of the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence: a request must identify a document or a narrow and specific category of documents, explain how they are relevant and material to the outcome, state that they are not in the requesting party's possession, and state why they are believed to be in the other party's possession.

The format is the Redfern Schedule, a table with columns for the request, the requesting party's justification, the objecting party's response, the requesting party's reply, and a blank column for the tribunal's decision. It is a good instrument and it disciplines both sides.

What works:

• Requests aimed at a specific transaction, decision, or period.
• Requests naming custodians where you know them.
• Requests that explain, in two sentences, why the document decides an issue.
• A small number of requests. Fifteen well-drafted requests outperform sixty.

What does not work:

• "All documents relating to the Agreement."
• Requests for the other side's legal analysis.
• Requests that read like American document requests. Tribunals reject them and note who filed them.

Objections are typically made on grounds drawn from IBA Article 9: lack of relevance or materiality, legal impediment or privilege, unreasonable burden, loss or destruction, commercial or technical confidentiality, special political or institutional sensitivity, and procedural economy or fairness.

Adverse inferences are real. Under IBA Article 9(6)–(7), a tribunal may infer that a document a party failed to produce without satisfactory explanation would be adverse to that party. Tribunals do this, and it is often more valuable than the document would have been.

Privilege is genuinely complicated. Different legal systems protect different things — in-house counsel communications are privileged in some systems and not others; settlement communications are treated variably. Raise the applicable privilege standard at the first procedural conference and get it decided rather than litigating it document by document.

And note what is not available. After ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd., 596 U.S. 619 (2022), 28 U.S.C. § 1782 does not reach private international commercial arbitration. Do not build a strategy on it.

Step 9: Witness evidence

Direct testimony is written. A witness statement is a signed narrative in the witness's own words, covering the facts within that witness's knowledge, with exhibit references. It replaces direct examination. At the hearing, the witness confirms the statement and is cross-examined.

Drafting is permitted and expected. In most international practice, counsel assists in preparing witness statements — this is not the English trial rule and not the American deposition rule. What is not permitted is putting words in the witness's mouth or presenting evidence the witness does not actually hold. The IBA Guidelines on Party Representation address this directly.

What makes a good statement:

• The witness's own voice. A statement written in counsel's register is obvious and it damages the witness on cross.
• Facts, not argument. A statement that argues the case invites the tribunal to discount it.
• Documents, integrated. "On 14 March I sent Ms. Oyelaran the revised schedule [Exhibit C-112] because ..." is far stronger than a bare assertion.
• Candor about weaknesses. A statement that ignores the bad document leaves the witness to address it for the first time under cross-examination.
• Reasonable length. Twenty pages of a key witness is fine. Sixty is not.

Who to call. Fewer than you think. Every witness is a cross-examination risk, and tribunals do not reward volume. Call the people whose evidence is necessary and whose credibility will hold.

Preparation for cross. Permitted in most international practice, within professional limits: familiarizing the witness with the documents, the process, and the likely lines of questioning. Rehearsing answers is not.

A tribunal may draw an adverse inference from a witness who submits a statement and does not appear for cross-examination when requested, and in some cases from a failure to call a witness who plainly has relevant knowledge.

Step 10: Expert evidence

Party-appointed experts are the norm in international commercial arbitration, though tribunals occasionally appoint their own on discrete technical questions.

Two structural choices made at the first conference:

Sequential or simultaneous reports. Sequential lets the respondent's expert respond to the claimant's; simultaneous prevents an expert from simply reacting. Simultaneous first reports followed by sequential replies is a common compromise.

Expert conferral. Many tribunals now require the experts to meet without counsel and produce a joint statement identifying points of agreement and disagreement, with reasons. This is enormously valuable. It compresses the hearing, isolates the genuine disputes, and exposes experts whose positions are advocacy rather than analysis.

Witness conferencing — "hot-tubbing." The tribunal hears both experts together, questioning them in turn on each issue. It is common in international arbitration and rare in American courts. It rewards experts who actually know the subject and punishes those who have been coached, which is why one side often resists it. Decide your position early.

Quantum experts should be engaged before the first memorial. Damages theory drives document requests, and a quantum model built after document production closes will be built on the wrong documents.

Step 11: Interim relief when you need it

Emergency arbitrator. Available under the ICC, LCIA, ICDR, SIAC, and HKIAC rules before the tribunal is constituted. Appointment typically within one to two business days; decision within one to two weeks. The relief binds the parties as a matter of contract.

Tribunal-ordered interim measures. Once constituted, the tribunal can order preservation of assets, security for costs, preservation of evidence, and interim payments. Enforcement of these orders is variable, and their status as "awards" under the New York Convention is contested.

Court-ordered relief. Necessary where third parties are involved — a bank, a registry, a customs authority. Seeking it is generally not a waiver of the arbitration agreement, and a well-drafted clause says so expressly.

Security for costs deserves specific mention. Where a claimant is impecunious or third-party funded, respondents increasingly apply for security. Tribunals grant it sparingly, generally requiring evidence that the claimant could not satisfy an adverse costs award and that the impecuniosity was not caused by the respondent's own conduct.

PART FOUR — THE HEARING AND AFTER

Step 12: Hearing logistics

International hearings are compressed. A dispute that would occupy a three-week federal trial typically gets five to eight hearing days, because the direct evidence is already in writing.

The chess clock. Most tribunals allocate time equally and run a clock. Every minute spent on a marginal cross-examination is a minute unavailable for the one that matters. Build a time budget before the hearing and hold to it.

What happens each day: opening submissions (short — the tribunal has read the memorials), then witnesses, then experts, then closing submissions or a direction for post-hearing briefs.

Logistics that go wrong:

• Interpretation. Simultaneous interpretation requires booths, equipment, and at least two interpreters per language pair working in rotation. Book months ahead and give the interpreters the memorials and a glossary.
• Transcription. Real-time transcription is standard and worth its cost. Agree the provider and the format early.
• The bundle. A hearing bundle — electronic, hyperlinked, and identically paginated for everyone — is the difference between a smooth hearing and a chaotic one. Assign one person to own it.
• Time zones. For remote or hybrid hearings, the sitting hours must work for the tribunal, the witnesses, and both teams. This is a negotiation, not an assumption.
• Visas and travel. Start early. Witnesses have been unable to attend hearings for visa reasons more than once.

Remote and hybrid hearings are now routine. They work well for shorter hearings and for expert evidence; they are harder for lengthy cross-examination of a contested witness. Most tribunals will decide the format after hearing the parties, and a party with a genuine reason to insist on in-person testimony should raise it early with specifics.

Step 13: Post-hearing submissions and costs

Post-hearing briefs are common, typically with an agreed page limit and a schedule of two to six weeks. Some tribunals request specific questions be addressed; answer them directly and first.

Cost submissions. International tribunals allocate costs far more readily than American courts. The prevailing party frequently recovers a substantial portion of legal fees. Submissions should:

• Itemize by phase and by fee earner.
• Explain rates by reference to the market for the work.
• Address proportionality against the amount in dispute.
• Address conduct — the other side's abandoned claims, obstructive document practice, or unreasonable procedural applications.
• Disclose third-party funding where the rules or the seat require it.

Keep contemporaneous records from day one. A costs submission assembled from reconstructed narratives is discounted.

Step 14: The award

Timing. Most rules set a target — the ICC's is six months from the Terms of Reference, routinely extended. Realistically, expect two to six months from the close of the record in a mid-size case, longer in a complex one.

At the ICC, the draft award is scrutinized by the Court before it issues. Scrutiny catches computational errors, internal inconsistencies, and omitted issues, and it materially improves enforceability. It adds four to eight weeks.

When it arrives:

• Read it against the submitted claims to identify anything not decided.
• Check the arithmetic.
• Check interest — rate, accrual date, compounding.
• Check the costs allocation and whether it is quantified.
• Note the date of delivery. Set-aside deadlines at the seat run from it, and they are short — three months at most Model Law seats.

Correction and interpretation. Every set of rules permits a request to correct computational, clerical, or typographical errors, and most permit a request to interpret an ambiguous award or to issue an additional award on a claim presented but omitted. The windows are short — often thirty days. Diarize them on the day the award arrives.

Step 15: Enforcement

Confirm where the assets are, not where it is convenient.

In the United States, a Convention award is confirmed under 9 U.S.C. § 207, with federal jurisdiction supplied automatically by § 203 — no diversity, no amount in controversy — and three years to file. The Badgerow jurisdictional problem that plagues domestic confirmations does not arise.

Abroad, each jurisdiction has its own recognition procedure under the Convention. Engage local counsel before filing, and give them certified translations of the award and the agreement.

Run jurisdictions in parallel, not in sequence. Sequential enforcement gives the debtor a year to move assets between each filing.

Watch the seat. A set-aside application at the seat is the single largest risk to the whole campaign, because Article V(1)(e) lets every enforcing court refuse an annulled award. Instruct counsel at the seat to monitor for filings and to respond immediately.

Where the debtor is a state, the arbitration exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act generally permits confirmation, but immunity from execution is a separate and harder problem requiring commercial-use property in the enforcing jurisdiction.

PART FIVE — WORKED SCENARIOS

Scenario A: the document request that worked

Thessaly Chemicals claimed that Rakoczy Industrial, its licensee, had underreported royalties on a specialty polymer. The dispute was ICC-administered, seat Zurich, governing law Swiss.

Thessaly's counsel, Beatriz Okonkwo-Marchetti, faced the standard problem: the evidence of underreporting was inside Rakoczy's ERP system, and international arbitration does not do American discovery.

What she did not do. She did not request "all documents relating to sales of the Licensed Products." That request would have been refused and would have cost her credibility.

What she did. Eleven requests, each about a paragraph. The three that mattered:

• Request 4: Monthly production output reports for Line 3 at the Ostrava facility, January 2022 through December 2024, in the format generated by Rakoczy's MES system. Relevance: Rakoczy reported royalty-bearing sales of 4,100 tonnes for the period; Thessaly's expert calculated minimum Line 3 output at 6,800 tonnes from public environmental filings. The gap is the case.
• Request 7: Documents sufficient to show the mapping between Rakoczy's SKU codes and product families in the royalty reports, including any revision to that mapping during the period. Relevance: the royalty report categories changed in Q3 2023 without explanation.
• Request 9: Communications between the finance director and the Ostrava plant manager concerning royalty reporting, for six named months. Relevance: those months follow each mapping revision.

The tribunal granted all three, narrowing Request 9 to two custodians. It refused four of the eleven as insufficiently specific — which Beatriz had expected, and which is why she filed eleven rather than four.

The outcome. The SKU mapping documents showed that a product family had been reclassified as non-royalty-bearing without notice to Thessaly. The award was €7.9 million plus interest.

The lesson. Specificity is not a limitation in international arbitration; it is the technique. A request the tribunal can grant without a second thought is worth twenty requests it has to think about.

Scenario B: the seat that was not a seat

Ferrand Aviation Services and Kolarov Leasing had a clause reading: "Any dispute shall be settled by arbitration in Vienna under the ICC Rules."

When the dispute arose, Kolarov argued that Vienna was merely the hearing location and that the seat, absent designation, should be determined by the ICC Court — and proposed Sofia. Ferrand argued Vienna was the seat.

Why it mattered. Austrian arbitration law is Model Law-based with a narrow set-aside regime and a well-regarded judiciary. The alternative was less familiar to Ferrand's counsel and, more to the point, unknown.

How it resolved. The ICC Court fixed Vienna as the seat, and the tribunal confirmed it in Procedural Order No. 1. Ferrand won the point — but it cost four months and roughly €180,000 in a preliminary dispute that a nine-word amendment to the clause would have avoided.

The lesson, and the fix. Two sentences: "The seat of the arbitration shall be Vienna, Austria. Hearings may be held at any location the tribunal considers convenient, without affecting the seat." Ferrand adopted it as standard across its lease portfolio the following quarter.

Scenario C: the expert conferral that ended the case

Wexbury Power and Tanaka Turbine Systems disputed the cause of a catastrophic bearing failure. Each side had a metallurgist and a quantum expert. The tribunal, at the first procedural conference, ordered that both pairs confer and produce joint statements before the hearing.

The metallurgists met for two days. Their joint statement recorded agreement on the failure mechanism — fatigue crack initiation at a machining defect — and disagreement only on whether the defect was present at manufacture or induced by an operating excursion.

The quantum experts met and agreed on everything but two inputs: the replacement power cost curve and the discount rate.

What this did to the hearing. The scheduled eight days became four. The metallurgists were heard together for half a day on the single disputed question. The quantum evidence took two hours.

And it did something else. With the issues narrowed to a binary factual question and two numbers, the parties settled on the second morning of the hearing. Neither side had been able to see the case that clearly before the experts were forced to state precisely where they disagreed.

The lesson. Expert conferral is the most underused procedural tool in international arbitration. It costs two days of expert time and it can save a hearing. Ask for it at the first conference.

PART SIX — BUDGET, TIMELINE, AND STAFFING

A realistic timeline

For a mid-size ICC case, three arbitrators, roughly €20 million in dispute:

Expedited procedures — available at most institutions below a monetary threshold, typically with a sole arbitrator, no Terms of Reference, limited or no document production, and often a documents-only or one-day hearing — compress this to six to twelve months.

Budget

For the same case, in broad ranges:

Where budgets overrun: document production disputes that expand; a bifurcation that adds a phase; an arbitrator whose availability delays the hearing by six months; and translation, which is almost always underestimated.

A note on the advance on costs. At the ICC, the advance covers the tribunal's fees and administrative expenses and is payable half by each side. If the respondent refuses to pay its half, the claimant must pay the whole advance to keep the case moving, and can seek recovery in the award. Budget for the possibility.

Staffing

Lead counsel — owns strategy, argues the hearing, manages the client.

A senior associate — owns the memorials, the chronology, and the document production workflow. This is the position that determines whether the case runs well.

Junior associates — research, exhibit management, witness statement drafting support, cost records.

A project manager or practice support lead — the bundle, the exhibit numbering, translations, the hearing logistics. In a case with ten thousand documents in three languages, this is not an administrative role.

Local counsel at the seat — engaged from the start, used rarely, indispensable when needed.

Enforcement counsel — engaged once the award is in sight, not after.

PART SEVEN — MISTAKES AMERICAN PRACTITIONERS MAKE

Serving American-style document requests. They will be refused, and the tribunal will note who filed them. Learn the Redfern format and use it.

Saving arguments for the hearing. The written record is the case. An argument not in the memorials often does not get made.

Underestimating the first procedural conference. It sets everything. Arrive with a draft order and a draft timetable.

Treating witness statements as affidavits. They are the direct testimony. A thin statement produces a witness who is cross-examined on a document the tribunal has not seen explained.

Expecting dispositive motions. They mostly do not exist. Early determination provisions are used sparingly.

Ignoring the seat until the award. The seat's courts can set the award aside. Monitor from day one.

Assuming confidentiality. Institutional rules differ. Some make arbitration confidential; some do not. Check, and provide for it in the clause.

Forgetting cost consequences. International tribunals shift costs. A claimant that pursues four weak claims alongside one strong one will hear about it in the costs award.

Booking interpretation late. Simultaneous interpreters in a specialized field are scarce. Book months ahead.

Building a strategy on § 1782. ZF Automotive closed that route for private commercial arbitration.

Choosing three arbitrators reflexively. Three costs roughly three times one and is slower to schedule. Use three where the amount and complexity justify it.

Waiting to map assets. The enforcement analysis belongs before the request, not after the award.

PART EIGHT — FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How long does an international arbitration take? Eighteen to thirty months from request to award for a mid-size case with three arbitrators. Expedited procedures run six to twelve months.

Can we get documents from the other side? Yes, but narrowly. Specific requests under the IBA Rules framework, presented in a Redfern Schedule, decided by the tribunal.

Can we depose witnesses? Generally no. Witness evidence comes in written statements, tested by cross-examination at the hearing.

Is the arbitration confidential? It depends on the rules and the seat. Do not assume. Provide for confidentiality in the clause, with carve-outs for enforcement, legal compliance, and disclosure to insurers, auditors, and lenders.

Can the tribunal award attorney's fees? Almost always, and it usually does. Cost-shifting is far more common than in American litigation, and conduct affects the allocation.

What if the other side refuses to pay its share of the advance? The claimant may pay the whole advance to keep the case moving and seek recovery in the award. Budget for it.

Can we appeal the award? No, in the ordinary sense. The seat's courts may set it aside on narrow grounds, and an enforcing court may refuse enforcement on the Article V grounds. Neither is a merits appeal.

What if the respondent ignores the arbitration? The tribunal proceeds. A default award is enforceable, provided the respondent received proper notice — which is precisely the Article V(1)(b) defense, so document service meticulously.

Can a non-signatory be joined? Sometimes, under agency, alter ego, group-of-companies, or estoppel theories depending on the applicable law. In the United States, GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS v. Outokumpu Stainless USA, LLC, 590 U.S. 432 (2020) confirms that the New York Convention does not bar enforcement by or against a non-signatory under domestic equitable doctrines.

Do we need counsel at the seat if nothing is happening there? Yes. Engage them at the start. When you need them — an interim application, a set-aside filing — you will need them the same week.

Should we use an emergency arbitrator or go to court? Both, usually. The emergency arbitrator binds the counterparty; the court binds third parties like banks and registries.

Is third-party funding permitted? In most seats, yes, and it is common. Disclosure obligations vary and are expanding; check the rules and the seat's requirements before signing a funding agreement.

PART NINE — FOR IN-HOUSE COUNSEL SUPERVISING THE MATTER

Ask for a case theory in one page at the outset. If outside counsel cannot state the claim, the key documents, the damages number, and the enforcement plan on a single page, the case is not yet understood.

Insist on the enforcement analysis before the request is filed. It is the question the business will ask when the award arrives, and the answer should not be discovered then.

Approve the arbitrator selection personally. It is the highest-leverage decision in the case and it is worth an hour of your time.

Attend the first procedural conference. It sets the schedule and the budget for two years.

Require monthly budget-to-actual reporting by phase. International arbitration budgets drift, and drift is visible early if anyone is looking.

Require contemporaneous cost records from day one. Costs are recoverable and the submission is only as good as the records.

Ask what the other side's best argument is, quarterly. A team that cannot answer has stopped testing its own case.

Plan for the business consequences of the timeline. Two and a half years is a long time for a supply relationship, a joint venture, or a construction project. Decide early whether the commercial relationship continues during the arbitration and, if so, who manages it.

Related documents

• International Arbitration and the New York Convention: Enforcing Awards Across Borders
• International Arbitration Checklist: A Practical Checklist
• International Arbitration Toolkit: Clauses, Procedural Orders, and Enforcement Petitions
• Challenging or Enforcing an Arbitration Award: A Practical Guide
• Confirming and Vacating Arbitration Awards: The Narrow Door of FAA Review
• Selecting and Drafting an Arbitration Clause

This guide is general information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship.