The 2019 LCIA Casework Report

On 19 May 2020 the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) released its 2019 Casework Report. The Report provides an insight to the caseload administered by the LCIA during 2019 by analysing statistics and providing a broad range of data. 

Highlights of interest from the Report are:

• 2019 was a record year for the LCIA in terms of caseload, 406 cases were referred to the LCIA including 346 arbitrations pursuant to the LCIA Rules, this is a 25% increase from 2018.
• England has remained the most frequently chosen arbitral seat (89%) and English law has remained the most frequently chosen law, governing 81% of arbitrations administered pursuant to the LCIA Rules. 
• The increase in female arbitrators being selected by the parties themselves has continued.  
• The diverse nature of the parties choosing the LCIA has continued, there has been growth in parties from Western Europe including Switzerland and Ireland.
• Challenges remained rare in LCIA arbitrations.

Industry sectors by dispute

• Energy and resource cases increased from 19% of the total cases referred to the LCIA in 2018 to 22% in 2019.
• The proportion of disputes in the banking and finance sector rose from 29% of the total cases administer by the LCIA in 2018 to 32% in 2019.
• The proportion of cases in the TMT sector remained relatively constant at 6% in 2018 and 5% in 2019 respectively.
• The banking and finance sector continued the trend seen in previous years as parties were more often claimants (22%) than respondents (6%).

Parties

• In 2019, the parties in arbitrations commenced pursuant to the LCIA Rules came for 138 different countries. 
• Only 19% of parties involved in LCIA arbitrations were from the United Kingdom and only 19 arbitrations involved UK only parties.
• 2019 saw growth in the percentage of Western European parties in LCIA arbitrations, increasing from 15% in 2018 to 24% in 2019. 
• In 2018, 14% of parties came from Asia, in 2019 this number decreased to 10%.

Underlying Agreement

• Most disputes referred to the LCIA in 2019 concerned loan agreements (30%), service agreements (19%), sale of goods agreements (18%), and shareholders, share purchase and joint venture agreements (14%).
• 2019 saw significant growth of disputes concerning loan or facility agreements, there has been an increase of 9% compared to 2018. 

Diversity of arbitrators

• The overall number of female arbitral appointments increased from 23% in 2018 to 29% in 2019 (162 out of 566 appointments were female).
• 48% of all arbitrators selected by the LCIA Court were female in 2019.

Relief, Interim Relief and Emergency Arbitrators

• In 2019 monetary relief was the sole relief sought by the majority of claimants (65%). 27% of claimants sought both monetary relief and declaratory relief and/or specific performance, and the remaining 8% of claimants sought only declaratory relief and/or specific performance.
• 2019 saw 64 applications for interim and conservatory measures. Relief was granted in 34 instances and rejected in 15.
• 10 applications were made during 2019 for the expedited appointment of the tribunal down from 23 in 2018.  Only one application was made for the appointment of an emergency arbitrator during 2019.  The emergency arbitrator issued an Award within 14 days of their appointment.

Challenges

• Challenges to LCIA arbitrations remained rare in 2019.
• In 2019, 7 challenges were made, 5 were rejected and 2 remained pending by the end of 2019.

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