The 100-year-old Arbitration Institute of the Finland Chamber of Commerce is currently in the process of revising its rules ("Rules"). The revised Rules aim to better correspond to the needs of the parties by taking into account the recent international development in the field of arbitration. They will, to a large extent, be modeled after the recently revised UNCITRAL arbitration rules and the more widely known rules of several foreign arbitration institutes. Hence, they will include elements that appear familiar to those with past experience of international commercial arbitration under different sets of rules.
The revised Rules will be remarkably detailed and informative. They will give more emphasis to freedom of contract and confidentiality of the proceedings. Perhaps most importantly for both domestic and international clients, the revised Rules should increase both the speed and the cost-effectiveness of the proceedings. They should also increase the transparency of the legal praxis which pertains to the existing Rules.
A draft of the revised Rules has already been sent to arbitration practitioners for comments. Although the draft of the revised Rules may still change somewhat, it is not too early to point out some of the key changes that have been planned. They are briefly summarized in the following.
According to the draft of the revised Rules, the proceedings will commence already when the Institute receives the Claimant's Request for Arbitration. If the parties have agreed on a tight time limit for the initiation of the proceedings, difficulties and uncertainties with regard to the service of the Request for Arbitration against the Respondent should no longer result in a loss of a right as easily as before.
Provisions on multi-party arbitration will be introduced. The joinder of additional parties and the consolidation of several arbitrations will be made possible. The provisions on multi-party arbitration have largely been influenced by those of the ICC Arbitration Rules. However, the fairly liberal conditions on joinder and consolidation even go somewhat further.
All arbitrators will have to be confirmed by the Institute. This is perhaps the most controversial of the proposed changes. Moreover, the draft revised Rules explicitly state that when the parties are of different nationalities, the sole arbitrator or the chairman of the arbitral tribunal will normally have to be of a different nationality.
Several time and cost-reducing provisions will be introduced. They concern, among other things, preparatory conferences, provisional procedural timetables, organization of the proceeding into separate issues, cut-off dates with respect to new claims, arguments or evidence and the process of closing the proceedings. The time limit for the rendering of the final award will be only 9 months instead of the current 12. However, the said provisions will allow the arbitral tribunal some discretion and flexibility.
Specific provisions with regard to arbitrator-ordered interim relief and a so-called Emergency Arbitrator will also be introduced. The Emergency Arbitrator provisions, which do not prohibit a party from applying to a competent court for interim measures, resemble the emergency relief provisions that are found in several other institutional arbitration rules.
According to the draft revised Rules, the Institute shall in all instances determine the fees and costs of the arbitration, including the arbitrators' fees.
The draft revised Rules will increase confidentiality as neither the arbitrators nor the parties will, subject to certain limitations, be allowed to disclose information relating to the arbitration.
Again, some of the planned revisions may still change because the revision process is still unfinished. The revised Rules should enter into force on 1 June 2013. With the exception of those provisions which concern joinder of additional parties, consolidation of arbitrations and the Emergency Arbitrator, the revised Rules will apply to all arbitrations that have been commenced on or after 1 June 2013, unless otherwise agreed by the parties.
The revision of the Rules is widely regarded as a welcome improvement. It should make commercial dispute resolution in accordance with the Rules a more attractive and practicable option in the eyes of both Finnish and foreign corporations. A more specific analysis of the key changes to the Rules as well as their practical implications will follow after the content of the revised Rules is certain and the revised Rules have entered into force.
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