On March 25, 2019, the Metropol Hotel, Moscow, became the stage for the fifth Russian Arbitration Day. The Conference was arranged by the Russian Arbitration Center at the Russian Institute of Modern Arbitration and the LF Academy educational project. Organization partners included international law firms Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. Support for the conference was also provided by Monastyrskiy, Zyuba, Stepanov & Partners, Egorov, Puginskiy, Afanasiev & Partners and the Platform litigation funding service. Overall, the Conference attracted more than 250 participants, and approximately 900 viewers followed it online.

RAD 2019 was moderated by Аnton Asoskov, Аleksey Zhiltsov and Roman Khodykin. Among special guests of the Conference were such celebrated experts in the field of international arbitration as V.V. Veeder QC (UK), Audley Sheppard QC (UK) и Klaus Peter Berger (Germany). Many young Russian and foreign legal professionals practicing law in Russia, Switzerland, France, Germany and Lithuania were speakers at the Conference.

Reports presented in the course of the sessions centered on matters related to international tax arbitration, arbitrability of matrimonial disputes and parallel and consecutive proceedings in investment arbitration.

Within the first section dedicated to investment arbitration, V.V. Veeder QC presented his report on arbitral reform and legal history: “The Blank Piece of Paper.” It was impossible not to discuss in this context the award rendered by the European Court of Justice in the case Slowakische Republik v Achmea BV which was meant to change the future of investment arbitration. In their discussions, Sergey Alekhin and Dmitry Bayandin studied in much detail the doctrine of res judicata and the acceptable limits of parallel and consecutive proceedings in investment arbitration, and Nikita Kondrashov and Sebastian Wuschka addressed foreign investor’s legitimate expectations within the framework of domestic legislation.

The second section of the Conference focused on general issues in arbitration. Within this section, reports were presented by Audley Sheppard, QC (in his talk he referred to oaths и perjury in international arbitration), Dmitry Pentsov (he spoke on unsettled issues in the reform of international tax arbitration). Arnaud Bourgeois and Olga Kuprenkova reconsidered the impact of unilateral extraterritorial sanctions on international arbitration, and Orsolya Toth spoke on “natural connection” in lех mercatoria.

Procedural issues in arbitration were also considered within the third RAD 2019 section. Klaus Peter Berger addressed the traditional dichotomy of common law and civil law in international arbitration. Dmitry Andreev analyzed the issue of state courts’ assistance in appointing arbitrators, and Dmitry Kaysin thoroughly studied production of documents as a separate stage of international arbitration. Olesya Petrol addressed a non-conventional issue of arbitrability of matrimonial disputes. Finally, Sergey Morozov focused on a growingly popular concept of combining arbitration and mediation when resolving commercial disputes (arb-med-arb).

For the first time in the RAD history, there was established RAD Award for the best research in the area of arbitration. The Award is aimed at promoting an in-depth research of debatable arbitration related issues and supporting Russian authors.

In 2019, the RAD Award was presented to Alexander Grebelskiy, PhD in Law and Senior Professor at the S.N. Lebedev Department of International Private and Civil Law at MGIMO, for his research on ‘Evidence in International Commercial Arbitration’.

Alexander Grebelskiy, PhD in Law, Senior Professor of the S. N. Lebedev Department for International Private and Civil Law, MGIMO, became the first winner of RAD 2019 Award for his work on “Evidence in International Commercial Arbitration”. The winner was awarded with a premium of RUB 150 000.

All the reports were published in a special digest «New Horizons of International Arbitration. Issue 5». This digest was traditionally gifted to each of those participating in the Conference and was made available for downloading.

Photos of the event are available on the Facebook page of the Russian Arbitration Center .

The video of the conference can be accessed on the Russian Arbitration Center YouTube channel in Russian and English.