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Advocacy in International Commercial Arbitration: ASA Special Series No. 36 - ASA Advocacy Prize (2010) Awarded to Franz Schwarz Laudatio

Author(s): 
Bernard R. Hanotiau
Page Count: 
6 pages
Published: 
July, 2013
Jurisdictions: 
International
Practice Areas: 
Commercial Disputes,
Advocacy
Author Detail: 

Bernard Hanotiau is a member of the Brussels and Paris Bars. Since 1978, Bernard Hanotiau has been actively involved in more than 350 international arbitration cases as party-appointed arbitrator, chairman, sole arbitrator, counsel and expert in all parts of the world.

Mr. Hanotiau is a Professor at the law school of Louvain University (Belgium) where he teaches international arbitration. He is a member of the ICCA Council and of the Council of the ICC Institute and a member of the ICC International Arbitration Commission. He is also vice-President of the Institute of Transnational Arbitration (Dallas) and a former vice-President of the LCIA Court. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Singapore International Arbitration Center and of the International Advisory Board of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre.

He is the author of Complex Arbitrations: Multiparty, Multicontract, Multi-issue and Class Actions (Kluwer, 2006) and of more than 120 articles, most of them relating to international commercial law and arbitration. In March 2011, Mr. Hanotiau received the GAR "Arbitrator of the Year" award.

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Originally from: Advocacy in International Commercial Arbitration - ASA Special Series No. 36

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Dear Colleagues,

It is for me a great honor to present the laudatio for this first ASA Prize for Advocacy in International Commercial Arbitration.

Before addressing the merits of the laureate, I will take the liberty of doing first the laudatio of ASA itself.

Last week, I was interviewed for the television in Singapore at the occasion of the opening of Maxwell Chambers and the journalist asked me what could effectively be done by Singapore to become a major venue of international arbitration. I answered that in my opinion, in order to be a very successful venue for international arbitration, you need to have very good hardware and very good software. The hardware is composed of many items such as an "easy-to-reach place", convenient facilities, flexible, arbitration-oriented legislation and a judiciary which does not interfere with arbitration except when it is so requested or where it is indispensable for the protection of fundamental values or principles. But the hardware is not enough. You also need very good software: a substantial number of law firms and lawyers motivated by, and dedicated to, international arbitration; prominent scholars who contribute by their writings and their teaching to the development of international arbitration and to the emergence of new talents; and finally, last but not least, a strong, well-administered and ambitious arbitration association which plays the role of meeting point for all generations of arbitrators, a place where know-how is exchanged and hot topics are debated. And my final comment to the journalist—which I reiterated a few hours later to the Minister of Justice who had invited a few arbitrators to discuss the same issue—was that the best example I could give of a country having the best possible hardware and software was Switzerland. And I would add that one of the main engines behind Switzerland’s success story is the dynamic and innovative Swiss Arbitration Association which, year after year, under the guidance of very dynamic presidents, has been able to profile itself as the most active, creative, imaginative, arbitration association, a breeding ground for new ideas and new talents.