Originally from Soft Law in International Arbitration, Second Edition

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Chapter 1

I. Introduction

Modern forms of “third-party funding” are no longer new to international arbitration. Recent years have seen an upsurge in the number of third-party funders, the number of funded cases, the number of law firms working with third-party funders, and the number of reported cases involving issues relating to funding. At the same time, international arbitration is increasingly used not only for disputes among commercial parties, but also disputes between states and commercial parties, and in state-to-state arbitrations. The participation of states has, in turn, focused attention from both within and outside the arbitration community on the integrity of the process, with particular focus on transparency and arbitrator conflicts of interest.

As a result of these various trends, third-party funding has increasingly drawn the attention of commentators and scholars, and even more recently of arbitral institutions, national regulatory authorities, and state trade negotiators.

Despite the increased attention, many questions remain about third-party funding in the context of international arbitration processes, most notably about potential arbitrator conflicts of interest, confidentiality, privilege, and costs issues. To address these questions, in 2013 the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA), in collaboration with Queen Mary, University of London, convened a Task Force on Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration. Since its inception, the Task Force has undertaken sustained study and discussion of relevant issues, and its findings are presented in the balance of this Report.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the organization and work of the Task Force. This Report is the result of the collective efforts of the Task Force. The views expressed are not attributable to any particular Member of the Task Force, and all views expressed are those of the Task Force, and not of Queen Mary or ICCA, its Governing Board, or members.

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