Third party funding of litigious disputes is a modern disguise of a traditional contingency fee agreements. The commercial background for litigation financing lies in the remuneration of funding of an action for recovery in case the claim proves to be successful. In several ways, third-party funding shares characteristics with contingency fee arrangements. Contingency fee agreements and champerty have origins in common law countries. They had been inadmissible for a long time, but started to make their way into the legal practice at the beginning of the twentieth century. Contingency fee arrangements have become quite common over the course of the past several decades. Third party funding, however, has been gaining wider acceptance only in the course of the past few years. Notwithstanding this, the feasibility and the weighing of potential gains against the dangers of third party funding continue to form the subject of debate.

In recent decades, investment arbitration has continued to be an expanding category of public international law. This growth is fueled by the fact that the law applied to international investment disputes is derived from numerous sources. Examples include bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”), multilateral investment treaties (“MITs”) and arbitral awards. Due to this diversity, certain dilemmas arise over the suitable manner in which these legal sources should be interconnected. One frequently asked question is whether it is accurate to say that a system of precedent operates within investment arbitration.

In June 2008, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) enacted a new rule that became known as the “Osaka Rule” and came into effect in July of the same year. Under this regulation, any athlete who was found guilty of violating anti doping rules and was suspended for a period of six months or longer and was automatically ineligible for participation in the following/next Olympic Games. This rule came under scrutiny in a number of cases concerning US athletes who had been found guilty of violating anti-doping rules.

On 15 September 2011, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “Court”) issued the judgment in case C-264/09 (Commission v. Slovak Republic) (the “Judgment”).

The Court made an important clarification with respect to relevance of Article 307 EC Treaty, dealing with treaties concluded by EU members with non-EU members (the “Third States”) before accession to the EU, to bilateral investment treaties (the “BITs”).

On 20 July 2011, a Commercial Court of the Kemerovo region in Russia (the “Court”) recognized an ICC arbitral award in Ciments Français vs Sibirsky Cement Holding Company that had been set aside by a domestic court in the state of the seat of arbitration. In doing so, the Court applied Article IX of the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration of 1961 (“European Convention”). This decision raises hopes that Russia’s reputation as an arbitration unfriendly country might take a turn for the better.

On 12 September 2011, the International Chamber of Commerce unveiled its newly revised ICC Rules of Arbitration (“New Rules”). Going into effect on 1 January 2012, the New Rules are the result of over two years of discussion and development by a special committee made up of members of the ICC Commission on Arbitration, representatives of the ICC International Court of Arbitration Secretariat, as well as practitioners, drawing on input from a 200-member Commission task force. Formally adopted this June, the new rules will revise the current framework which has been in place for the past 13 years and has provided a legal basis for over 8,000 arbitrations worldwide.

On 1 July 2011 the Supreme Court of Sweden entertained the enforcement claim of Mr. Franz Sedelmayer and admitted execution of an arbitral award by means of distraint of rental income from a building located in Sweden, which had once been utilized by the USSR Trade Mission to Sweden (case no. Ö 170-10).

The UK Supreme Court has recently rendered its much anticipated judgment in the case of Jivraj v Hashwani [2011] UKSC 40. The dispute had led to concerns in the UK arbitration community and further afield for the restrictions it may have caused parties to adhere to under English law when choosing arbitrators to regulate their disputes.

“Our examination of the entire record in this case shows a direct, personal, professional, social, and business relationship between arbitrator F*** (hereinafter “Mr. F”) and [attorney] J*** (hereinafter “Mr. J”).” The last page of the Dallas 5th Court of Appeals finding regarding a decade-long relationship between an arbitrator and an attorney neatly sums up one of the more blatant cases of failure to disclose to arise in the arbitration community. This, one of the rare cases of a successful challenge of an arbitration award, led the court to vacate a $22 million award.

The doctrine of sovereign immunity originates from international law. It is based on the principle that States would be severely hindered if it would be possible for them to be sued in the courts of other States. However, the application of this doctrine is disputed. Originally, the only option was to have absolute sovereign immunity whereby States cannot be sued for any of their acts. The narrow approach of absolute sovereign immunity later evolved into what has become known as common law immunity, a concept that is favored and applied by the majority of States. This doctrine stipulates that States are immune from their actions in an official capacity but not when it comes to any acts of a commercial nature.