• 한국중재학회지:중재연구
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• 제31권3호
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• pp.25-42
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• 2021

Arbitration is an alternative dispute resolution mechanism based on the parties' agreement to resolve any disputes parties may have by arbitration rather than litigation in court. Parties' consent to arbitrate, which must be manifest in the parties' arbitration clause or agreement, is the foundation for arbitration; thus, the language of an arbitration agreement is often of utmost importance in determining the intent of the parties regarding many aspects of arbitration proceedings, such as, the scope of arbitral proceedings, arbitral seat, and authority of arbitral tribunals, among others. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela (2019) that ambiguity in arbitration agreement as to availability of class arbitration should be resolved in favor of individual arbitration, and therefore, class arbitration would be precluded. Such holding was met with criticism by four separate dissenting opinions, in which the dissenting Justices have disagreed with the majority's interpretation of the arbitration agreement at issue, as well as, its rejection of application of state law in resolving contractual ambiguity. This article analyzes the Supreme Court's decision and reviews the Court's approach in construction of the arbitration agreement. Nevertheless, because the Supreme Court declined to provide clear guidelines as to precisely what contractual basis is required to permit class arbitration, either silence or ambiguity in arbitration agreements will be resolved by disallowing class arbitration.

• 한국중재학회지:중재연구
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• 제25권1호
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• pp.65-86
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• 2015

Under current international investment law clear criteria to determine standards of indirect expropriation are absent. Arbitral tribunals determine on a case-by-case whether an indirect expropriation has occurred by conducting a fact-based inquiry. However, three common determination standards can be inferred by analyzing prior arbitration cases. The appropriate analytical framework that can be applied to determine whether a state's measure constitutes an indirect expropriation is as follows. i) the degree of economic invasion of the state's action into the foreign investor's property rights and durability of the period, ii) interference with the foreign investor's distinct and reasonable investment-backed expectations, and iii) the nature, purpose and character of the state's measure. Therefore, it is necessary to fully acknowledge and to utilize strategically this determination standard. However, derived standards cannot be applied to all disputes en masse. So, it is desirable to exclude ambiguity and to clearly define the determination standard of indirect expropriation in investment agreements, since arbitral tribunals can apply different determination standards on a case-by-case basis. And, based on the discussions until now, more developed standards and direction in response to demand should be established through consistent analysis and review of precedents related to indirect expropriation. Lastly, This study is expected to be a useful guideline to prepare a necessary countermeasure to prevent dispute related to indirect expropriation beforehand or in case of dispute occurrence.