News-Archive
The Cross-Institutional Task Force on Gender Diversity in Arbitral Appointments and Proceedings is pleased to announce the release of its Report, the eighth volume of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) Reports Series.
This Cross-Institutional Task Force, assembled in 2019, brings together representatives of 17 leading international arbitration institutions, law firms and gender diversity initiatives to publish and analyze recent statistics on the appointment of female arbitrators, as well as to identify opportunities and best practices to promote gender diversity in international arbitration.
Please read here an obituary of Werner Melis.
The Vienna International Arbitral Centre mourns the loss of Eric E. Bergsten. Mr. Bergsten passed away peacefully on 1 July 2023 at the age of 91.
Eric E. Bergsten is considered the founding father of the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot and has dedicated his career and life to promoting commercial law and arbitration with a vision to peaceful dispute resolution. When Eric E. Bergsten initiated the Vis Moot in 1993, the hearings were held on VIAC's premises and VIAC has continued to play a role in the co-organisation.
As already announced, with a heavy heart we had to cancel the GAR Live Vienna Event that was to take place on October 9, 2020 due to the pandemic. This video-message by the 3 co-chairs Stefan Riegler, Filip Boras and Alice Fremuth-Wolf will hopefully give you some hope and an outlook of what to expect in 2021.
The Annual Report 2022 provides a detailed review of VIAC's various activities in the past year as well as interesting statistical details and an outlook on VIAC's new projects for 2023.
Please view the full text of the report for further details.
Commonwealth countries are at risk of losing foreign investment and trade from not having modern dispute resolution systems available to their business communities.
This is one of the key messages from a major study on international commercial arbitration in the Commonwealth which has recently been published.
After the cancellation due to COVID-19 last year, the IBA-VIAC Consensual Dispute Resolution Competition (CDRC Vienna) took place for the first time this year as an online competition from July 10th to 14th, 2021; overall, the competition was held for the sixth time.
The Singapore Convention on Mediation, signed on 7 August, 2019, entered into force on 12 September, 2020, launching a new era for international mediation.
The Singapore Agreement is a uniform and efficient framework for international settlements resulting from mediation. It facilitates international trade and commerce by enabling the disputing parties to easily enforce and invoke settlement agreements across borders. As such, the Convention provides greater assurance to businesses that mediation can be relied on and encourages companies to use mediation as an additional option to litigation and arbitration.
We are pleased to share the VIAC Explanatory Notes on the Vienna Rules of Investment Arbitration and Mediation 2021 with you. The guide is available in English here.
In an effort to promote greener and more sustainable arbitrations, VIAC has signed the Campaign for Greener Arbitrations’s Green Pledge.
Nikolaus Pitkowitz, who has held the position of Vice-President of VIAC since 2017 and is a long-standing Board member has taken over the role of President of VIAC from Günther Horvath. Günther dedicated his time and expertise to our institution in his role as President for five years and for much longer as a Board member. We are extremely grateful to Günther for playing a substantial role in shaping the institution into what it has become, the premiere international institution in Central and Eastern Europe. Günther expressed his satisfaction with the new leadership of VIAC: “I am extremely pleased with the transition of the VIAC presidency to Nicky Pitkowitz standing for continuity and further progress of the institution. VPs Patrizia Netal and Franz Schwarz will be part of a great team set for success.”
We are pleased to present our latest brochure. The practical guide "(Kein) Streit am Bau" (How to avoid construction disputes) was developed together with the Austrian Society for Construction Law and the Construction Industry (ÖGEBAU) in a specially established working group and is intended to provide construction firms, principals and practitioners alike with an overview of established and alternative dispute resolution methods in construction disputes. The brochure is available for download in German here.
We are excited to share our latest brochure with you. The brochure was developed jointly with the LGT Bank and taps into a new field of arbitration: private clients. It aims at offering practical guidance for families and family businesses to utilize mediation and arbitration to resolve issues. You can download the brochure here.
The Vienna International Arbitral Centre (VIAC) and Jus Mundi are delighted to announce a partnership in the name of the public good, to improve global access to key Austrian municipal decisions relating to arbitration.
On 1 July 2021, a new version of the VIAC Rules of Arbitration and Mediation as well as a complete new set of VIAC’s Investment Arbitration and Mediation Rules 2021 entered into force. They are applicable to all proceedings commenced after 30 June 2021.
We proudly announce the members of the VIAC Board for the term 2020-2022 who were appointed by the Extended Presiding Committee of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber:
We are pleased to report on the latest initiative by the ERA Pledge, the launch of the Pledge Corporate Guidelines on 26 November 2020. The Pledge Corporate Guidelines are a set of guidelines specifically designed for corporates to use to implement the diversity aims of the Pledge. The Pledge Corporate Guidelines can be found on the ERA Pledge website.
The third Freshfields Women's event in collaboration with the ERA Pledge took place the morning after GAR Live Vienna, in the surroundings of the 25hours Hotel rooftop terrace.
The Annual Report 2020 provides a detailed review of VIAC's various activities in the past year as well as interesting statistical details and an outlook on VIAC's new projects for 2021.
Please view the full text of the report for further details.