Past Events

On 18 November 2018, CRCICA co-organized and hosted a seminar on “Managing Risk Through Dispute Resolution” in cooperation with the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Egypt. The speakers were Mr. Rupert Reece, Partner at Gide Loyrette Nouel (London), Ms. Alexandra Munoz, Partner at Gide Loyrette Nouel (Paris) and Ms. Saadia Bhatty, Counsel, International Dispute Resolution (IDR) team at Gide Loyrette Nouel (London). CRCICA’s Director moderated the seminar. The speakers discussed important issues including: state courts and arbitration, managing risk through investment arbitration, sources and specificities of investment arbitration, good practices for host states, advantages and limitations of ADR mechanisms and escalation clauses.

The seminar was attended by about 120 participants from Denmark, Egypt, and Japan, representing the Egyptian State Lawsuit Authority, ministries, universities, judicial and public entities, in addition to professionals from various business sectors including construction & engineering, electricity, banking, media and technology.

On 11 November 2018, CRCICA organized jointly with HORIZONS & Co. a Seminar on: “Arbitration in the Entertainment and Media Industry.” The speakers were Mr. Ali Ismail Al Zarooni, Chairman, HORIZONS & Co and Dr. Ismail Selim, who gave a presentation about CRCICA’s background and current activities and focused on the rise of the media and entertainment industry and the increasing importance of arbitration to settle disputes arising thereof, highlighting a number of important cases administered by CRCICA in this field.

For the first time, CRCICA co-organized and sponsored two events at the Dubai Arbitration Week (11-15 November 2018) hosted by the Dubai International Financial Centre (“DIFC”) Arbitration Institute, Dubai, UAE.

On 15 November 2018, CRCICA and the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry jointly organized a Seminar on “Commercial Arbitration” hosted by the Riyadh Chamber. The event was moderated by Princess Hala bint Khaled bin Sultan, Director, Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Former Legal Advisor at the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority and Honorary Member of CRCICA. The inauguration speech was delivered by Mr. Ajlan Bin Abdulaziz Alajlan, Chairman of the Board of the Riyadh Chamber. In his speech, Mr. Ajlan outlined the Chamber’s role in promoting and developing the commercial arbitration as an effective and expedite means to resolve commercial and investment disputes. Prince Dr. Bandar Ben Salman Al-Saud, Honorary President of the GCC Commercial Arbitration Centre and Vice-Chairman of CRCICA’s Board of Trustees shed light on the progress of arbitration in KSA and the role of the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration in raising the capacity of Saudi arbitrators.

The presentation of Dr. Selim focused on the most important arbitration awards rendered in cases related to the oil industry and involving Arab oil-producing countries. The presentation also included a historical background about arbitration in the region as well as CRCICA’s services, Board of Trustees, Advisory Committee, caseload and recent activities and recognitions.

The seminar witnessed the singing of a cooperation agreement between CRCICA and the Riyadh Chamber.

Seminar on “The Social and Psychological Underpinnings of Commercial Arbitration” following the launching the project in Egypt

Egypt was selected to be the starting point of the 5-year project, and the first country outside Europe to be studied in this important research. During the first week of November 2018, CRCICA hosted a series of interviews conducted by Tony Cole, JAMS arbitrator and reader in arbitration and investment law at Leicester Law School, and Joshua Karton, associate professor and associate dean at the Queen’s University Faculty of Law in Canada, with Egyptian arbitration practitioners. The interviews were conducted as part of the Research Project into “the Social and Psychological Underpinnings of Commercial Arbitration in Europe,” conducted by University of Leicester Law School, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and supported by the Chartered Institute for Arbitrators. This project is reported to be the “biggest empirical research project yet to be undertaken in the field.”

Following the end of the interviews, CRCICA hosted and organized, on 8 November 2018, a seminar titled “The Social Underpinnings in Arbitration”. The speaker was Dr. Joshua Karton, Associate Professor and the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. At the onset of the event, Dr. Karton commented on the results of the interviews conducted in Cairo: “What we found here (in Egypt) is a very globalized arbitration community even among people who never practiced outside Cairo. The most surprising thing is how much what we saw here is similar to what we expect to see in Paris, London, and New York and other really larger arbitration centres.”

The presentation of Dr. Karton titled: Sociological Insights for International Arbitration Practice focused on the role of “Legal Culture” and its impact on international arbitration and on the decisions of arbitrators. Dr Karton also approached the impact of Legal Culture on arbitration. He noticed that despite some “cultural clashes”, there is an international trend towards harmonization. Dr. Karton also focused on the central role that CRCICA plays in the arbitration community, stating that “what we did find here in Egypt is that CRCICA is very much a hub, the visual metaphor in the centre of the wheel, when we spoke to different law firms, different practitioners, and different kinds of industry groups.”

Attendees were from Egypt, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and had various backgrounds and professions, including law firms, universities, banks, telecommunications sector, construction and engineering industry as well as members of the Ministry of Education.