The Arbitration Act 2025, which received Royal Assent on 24 February 2025 and was largely brought into force by the Arbitration Act 2024 (Commencement) Regulations following the change in government, represents the first substantial statutory revision of English arbitration law in nearly three decades. The Law Commission’s project, initiated in March 2021 and culminating in its final report of September 2023, deliberately rejected wholesale recodification in favour of targeted amendment of the Arbitration Act 1996 (Law Commission, 2023). The political compromise this represents — modernisation without disruption — is itself the central evaluative puzzle. The question whether the 2025 Act strengthens London as a dispute resolution hub cannot be answered by counting amendments; it requires assessment of whether the Act addresses the genuine pressure points threatening London’s competitive position, while preserving the doctrinal and institutional features that have historically secured its dominance.
This essay argues that the 2025 Act strengthens London’s position, but only modestly and asymmetrically. Its most significant contribution lies in three reforms: the new default rule on the law governing the arbitration agreement in section 6A, the codification of arbitrator disclosure duties in section 23A, and the streamlined section 67 challenge procedure. These reforms address concrete vulnerabilities exposed by recent litigation, particularly the doctrinal turbulence following Enka v Chubb and the procedural inefficiency exposed in Dallah and The Republic of Sierra Leone v SL Mining. However, the Act’s deliberately conservative scope leaves untouched several structural challenges — third-party funding regulation, confidentiality codification, corruption-related procedural innovation, and the post-Brexit anti-suit jurisdiction — where competitor seats have moved more aggressively. The Act consolidates rather than transforms; it secures London’s incumbent advantages but does not significantly extend them. On the better view, the Act’s quiet, technocratic character is itself a competitive virtue, given that arbitration users prize stability, but the absence of bolder reform on confidentiality and funding represents a missed opportunity that Singapore and Paris will exploit.
The competitive standard: what “strengthening” London actually requires
Any evaluation must first specify what would count as strengthening London as a hub. The Queen Mary–White & Case International Arbitration Survey 2021 identified the most important factors influencing choice of seat as: the general reputation and recognition of the seat; the neutrality and impartiality of the local legal system; the national arbitration law; and the track record for enforcing agreements to arbitrate and arbitral awards (Queen Mary University of London and White & Case, 2021). The 2025 Act can only realistically affect the third and fourth of these — and even then only at the margin, since the 1996 Act was already regarded by 64% of respondents in the 2021 survey as among the most preferred. London consistently shares the top tier with Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris and Geneva, with Singapore having drawn level in the most recent survey (Queen Mary University of London and White & Case, 2021).
Strengthening, in this context, therefore means one of three things: closing identified doctrinal gaps that have generated litigation cost or uncertainty; adding procedural features that respond to user-driven demand; or removing competitive disadvantages relative to comparable seats. The 2025 Act is overwhelmingly an exercise of the first kind. That has consequences. Reforms aimed at closing internal doctrinal gaps tend to be defensive — they prevent erosion of position rather than expanding it. The question is whether defensive consolidation is sufficient when Singapore, in particular, has pursued a more aggressive programme of statutory and institutional innovation through successive amendments to the International Arbitration Act 1994 (Singapore) and the SIAC Rules.
The governing law of the arbitration agreement: section 6A as the Act’s most significant intervention
The most doctrinally important reform is section 6A, which introduces a default rule that the law governing the arbitration agreement is the law of the seat, unless the parties expressly agree otherwise. This directly displaces the Supreme Court’s decision in Enka Insaat Ve Sanayi AS v OOO Insurance Company Chubb [2020] UKSC 38, where a 3:2 majority held that, in the absence of express choice, the law governing the matrix contract would generally also govern the arbitration agreement (Enka v Chubb, 2020). The decision was reaffirmed by a different majority of the Supreme Court in Kabab-Ji SAL v Kout Food Group [2021] UKSC 48, where the English court applied English conflicts rules and a different French court applied French conflicts rules to the same arbitration agreement, reaching diametrically opposite conclusions (Kabab-Ji SAL v Kout Food Group, 2021).
The doctrinal problem with the Enka default was twofold. First, it produced systematic divergence between English and French conflicts approaches, undermining the cross-border predictability that is arbitration’s principal selling point. Second, it generated significant satellite litigation, since determining the implied choice required interpretive exercises of considerable complexity, as evidenced by the fact that the Supreme Court itself divided on the result. Lord Burrows and Lord Sales dissented in Enka on grounds that have proved prescient: the seat-law default better serves predictability and aligns with the separability principle in section 7 of the 1996 Act (Enka v Chubb, 2020, [259]–[280]).
The Law Commission’s recommendation, ultimately adopted in section 6A, was that the seat should govern by default (Law Commission, 2023, paras 12.74–12.77). The reasoning is doctrinally coherent. The separability principle, statutorily entrenched since 1996, treats the arbitration agreement as a distinct contract; it is therefore conceptually unstable to assume that the matrix contract’s governing law automatically captures the separable arbitration clause. The seat is the forum the parties have actively chosen for resolution of disputes, and it carries the supervisory jurisdiction. Aligning the substantive law of the arbitration agreement with the supervisory law removes a frequent point of fragmentation.
For London’s competitive position, section 6A is genuinely strengthening. It removes a source of post-Enka litigation cost; it brings English law into broad alignment with the approach reflected in French jurisprudence following Dalico (where the French courts apply transnational principles emphasising party intention and the seat-related connections); and it makes the choice of London as seat a more legally complete decision. Parties who choose London now also choose, by default, English law to govern the validity, scope and effect of their arbitration agreement. This is a meaningful enhancement of seat coherence.
Critics, notably some practitioners who advised the Law Commission consultation, have argued that the new default may undermine arbitration agreements where the matrix contract is governed by a law under which the clause would be valid but where seat law might invalidate it (or vice versa) (Law Commission, 2022, Consultation Paper 257, paras 11.45–11.60). The point has force in edge cases, but it overstates the practical risk. Where parties genuinely want a non-seat law to govern the arbitration agreement, section 6A permits express agreement. The default rule allocates the burden of clarification to the party who wishes to depart from the seat-law presumption, which is the analytically defensible position given that the seat itself is invariably the product of express choice.
Importantly, section 6A also carves out investor-State arbitrations where the arbitration agreement arises from a treaty or non-UK legislation, preserving consistency with the special character of investor-State dispute settlement (Arbitration Act 2025, s 6A(2)). This is a sensible limitation; it avoids the unintended consequence of applying English contract law to interpret consent provisions in bilateral investment treaties.
Codifying arbitrator disclosure: section 23A and the response to Halliburton
Section 23A introduces a statutory duty of disclosure for arbitrators, codifying the common-law duty recognised by the Supreme Court in Halliburton Co v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd [2020] UKSC 48 (Halliburton v Chubb, 2020). The arbitrator is now under a continuing duty to disclose, as soon as reasonably practicable, any circumstances that might reasonably give rise to justifiable doubts as to impartiality. The duty is framed by reference to what the arbitrator ought reasonably to know, rather than only actual knowledge.
The reform addresses a specific tension in Halliburton. Lord Hodge’s leading judgment held that an arbitrator could be under a duty to disclose even though, on the facts, non-disclosure did not, when viewed objectively, give rise to apparent bias justifying removal (Halliburton v Chubb, 2020, [145]–[155]). The judgment was widely welcomed for clarifying the conceptual independence of the disclosure duty from the test for apparent bias, but its common-law character left questions about scope, timing and continuing nature unresolved.
The statutory formulation in section 23A has two competitive implications. First, it places English law in a more transparent position than competitor seats whose disclosure duties remain governed by institutional rules alone or by less developed common-law doctrine. Singapore’s International Arbitration Act, for example, contains no comparable statutory disclosure duty, relying instead on the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration and on the SIAC Code of Ethics. Second, the statutory duty removes a frequent ground of challenge based on novel theories of non-disclosure: arbitrators now have a clear statutory standard against which to calibrate disclosure, which should reduce the volume of removal applications under section 24 of the 1996 Act.
The reform is not without difficulty. The “ought reasonably to know” standard is open-textured and will inevitably require judicial interpretation. There is a real risk that the standard becomes a vehicle for sophisticated parties to manufacture grounds of challenge by reverse-engineering what an arbitrator should have discovered. The Law Commission considered but rejected a stricter “knew or ought to have known after due inquiry” formulation (Law Commission, 2023, paras 3.42–3.55), but the line between reasonable awareness and constructive due inquiry will inevitably be tested. On balance, the reform strengthens London by signalling robust ethical standards, but its long-term impact will depend on how restrictively courts construe the duty.
Section 67 reform: the response to procedural exploitation of jurisdictional challenges
Section 67 of the 1996 Act, which permits a party to challenge an award on grounds that the tribunal lacked substantive jurisdiction, was widely regarded as the procedural feature most in need of revision. Under the previous rule, as confirmed in Dallah Real Estate and Tourism Holding Co v Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Government of Pakistan [2010] UKSC 46, the court was required to conduct a full de novo rehearing of the jurisdictional question, regardless of how thoroughly the tribunal had already addressed it (Dallah v Pakistan, 2010). The Supreme Court reaffirmed this approach despite acknowledging its tension with the doctrine of compétence-compétence.
The 2025 Act, through amendments to section 67 implementing the Law Commission’s recommendation, restricts the court’s role where the objecting party participated in the arbitral proceedings and the tribunal has already ruled on jurisdiction. Specifically, the new rules of court empower the court to refuse to entertain new grounds of objection not raised before the tribunal, to refuse to allow new evidence that could have been adduced before the tribunal, and to limit re-examination of evidence already heard, save where the interests of justice otherwise require (Law Commission, 2023, paras 5.46–5.80).
This is a meaningful procedural innovation. The previous regime imposed a structural inefficiency: a party could participate fully in the arbitration, lose on jurisdiction, and then re-litigate the entire jurisdictional question in the High Court with fresh evidence and arguments. The procedural cost was substantial, and the asymmetry favoured well-resourced parties who could afford parallel preparation. The Republic of Sierra Leone v SL Mining Ltd [2021] EWHC 286 (Comm) and the line of cases following Dallah demonstrated how readily section 67 could be used as a tactical second bite at the cherry (SL Mining v Sierra Leone, 2021).
The reform brings English procedure closer to the position in seats which treat jurisdictional rulings with greater finality, while preserving the constitutional principle that consent is the foundation of arbitral jurisdiction and that courts must retain ultimate authority to verify it. The reform is defensible because it does not eliminate de novo review; it disciplines its exercise where the party has had a full opportunity before the tribunal. This is the analytically correct response to Dallah: not abandoning de novo review, which would compromise legitimate constitutional principles around consent, but preventing its procedural abuse.
The competitive significance is that London now offers a more efficient post-award process while retaining its reputation for rigorous judicial supervision. This is precisely the calibration that distinguishes mature arbitration seats from lighter-touch jurisdictions, and it should appeal to users who value both supervisory integrity and procedural economy.
Summary disposal and emergency arbitrators: incremental modernisation
Sections 39A and 41A introduce express statutory powers for arbitrators to issue summary awards on issues that have no real prospect of success, and to give effect to orders of emergency arbitrators. Both reforms are technically modest but symbolically significant.
The summary disposal power addresses a practical concern that English-seated arbitrations were sometimes hampered by uncertainty about whether tribunals could dispose of manifestly unmeritorious claims or defences without a full hearing. While the general procedural discretion in section 34 of the 1996 Act probably already permitted summary disposal, the absence of an express power created reluctance among arbitrators concerned about due-process challenges at the enforcement stage. Section 39A removes this uncertainty by adopting a standard (“no real prospect of success”) that mirrors the test in CPR 24 (Civil Procedure Rules 1998), thereby anchoring the arbitral standard in familiar English procedural concepts.
The emergency arbitrator provisions catch up with institutional practice. The ICC, LCIA, SIAC and HKIAC have all had emergency arbitrator procedures for over a decade. The 1996 Act, drafted before emergency arbitrator procedures emerged, contained no express recognition of their orders. Section 41A now allows emergency arbitrator orders to be enforced through the same mechanisms as orders of the main tribunal, including by application to the court under section 42.
Whether these provisions actually strengthen London or merely prevent further erosion is debatable. Singapore amended its International Arbitration Act in 2012 to recognise emergency arbitrators (Singapore International Arbitration Act, s 2 (definition of “arbitral tribunal”)). Hong Kong followed in 2013. London’s reform comes more than a decade later. The catch-up character of these reforms means they reduce a competitive disadvantage rather than creating an advantage; the seats that already addressed these issues will not lose ground to London because of them, but London will no longer lose ground to them.
What the Act does not do: the limits of consolidation
The case for the 2025 Act being merely consolidating, rather than transformative, rests on what it omits. Four omissions are particularly significant.
Confidentiality remains uncodified
English arbitration has long been governed by an implied common-law duty of confidentiality, derived from cases such as Dolling-Baker v Merrett [1990] 1 WLR 1205 and refined in Emmott v Michael Wilson & Partners Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 184, where Lawrence Collins LJ identified several exceptions including consent, court order, the public interest and the need to protect the legitimate interests of an arbitrating party (Emmott v Michael Wilson, 2008). The result is a multi-faceted, judge-made doctrine that practitioners must reconstruct from a body of cases.
The Law Commission considered codifying confidentiality but recommended against it, on the basis that the common-law position was sufficiently developed and that statutory codification might prove rigid (Law Commission, 2023, paras 9.4–9.46). The reasoning is defensible but not unanswerable. Hong Kong codified confidentiality in section 18 of the Arbitration Ordinance (Cap 609) in 2011, providing greater certainty for users from civil-law jurisdictions where the existence of confidentiality is not assumed. Singapore has reached a similar position through its International Arbitration Act and the SIAC Rules.
The competitive significance is that prospective users from jurisdictions unfamiliar with English common-law techniques may perceive English confidentiality as less reliable than it actually is. The Law Commission’s instinct that codification would have rigidified a flexible doctrine is sound in principle, but the reform missed an opportunity to provide a clear statutory signal that London takes confidentiality at least as seriously as its competitors. The 2021 Queen Mary survey identified confidentiality as a feature of growing importance, particularly for parties in technology, life sciences and financial services disputes (Queen Mary University of London and White & Case, 2021).
Third-party funding is not addressed
Third-party funding has become a structural feature of large international arbitration practice in London. The 2025 Act addresses none of the associated issues: no disclosure requirement for funding arrangements, no statutory regulation of funders, no rules on security for costs against funded parties, and no statutory clarification of the impact of the R (PACCAR Inc) v Competition Appeal Tribunal [2023] UKSC 28 decision on litigation funding agreements as damages-based agreements (PACCAR v CAT, 2023).
While PACCAR concerned class action proceedings and its direct application to arbitration funding is contested, the uncertainty it generated has not been clarified by the 2025 Act. Singapore’s amendments in 2017 to the Civil Law Act and Hong Kong’s Arbitration and Mediation Legislation (Third Party Funding) (Amendment) Ordinance 2017 both expressly permitted third-party funding subject to disclosure and conduct requirements. London relies on a less structured framework, principally the Association of Litigation Funders’ voluntary Code of Conduct.
The omission may reflect a deliberate policy choice not to address third-party funding ahead of the broader Civil Justice Council’s ongoing review of litigation funding (Civil Justice Council, 2024). That sequencing is defensible, but it means the 2025 Act offers no competitive answer to seats that have addressed funding directly. For a financial services hub aspiring to dominate large commercial disputes, this is a non-trivial gap.
Corruption and procedural innovation
The Act offers no specific procedural innovation in response to the corruption-related challenges exposed in Nigeria v Process & Industrial Developments Ltd [2023] EWHC 2638 (Comm), where Robin Knowles J set aside a USD 11 billion award on grounds that included fraud and bribery in the procurement of the underlying contract (Nigeria v P&ID, 2023). The judgment was a vindication of section 68 of the 1996 Act as a backstop against awards procured by corruption, but it also illustrated how difficult and expensive it is for States to establish corruption-based challenges within the existing procedural framework.
The Law Commission consulted on whether further reform was needed to address corruption-related challenges but ultimately concluded that existing tools were sufficient (Law Commission, 2023, paras 6.74–6.91). The conclusion is reasonable, but it is also conservative. Procedural innovations such as a tribunal-led duty to inquire into corruption concerns, or specific evidential rules, could have placed London at the forefront of corruption-resilient arbitration. The absence of such innovation does not weaken London, but it represents another foregone opportunity to differentiate.
Anti-suit jurisdiction and the post-Brexit landscape
The 2025 Act does not address the substantive expansion of anti-suit jurisdiction following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union and the consequent freedom from the West Tankers constraint imposed by the Court of Justice in Allianz SpA v West Tankers Inc (Case C-185/07) [2009] ECR I-663 (West Tankers, 2009). The Supreme Court’s decision in UniCredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC [2024] UKSC 30 confirmed the broad availability of anti-suit relief in support of English-seated arbitration, even where the foreign proceedings are pursued outside the United Kingdom (UniCredit v RusChemAlliance, 2024).
The expanded anti-suit jurisdiction is doctrinally important for London’s competitive position; it is in some respects more significant than any provision in the 2025 Act. But it is the product of judicial development and political circumstance, not the new legislation. The 2025 Act could have codified or clarified the scope of anti-suit relief — particularly the test in The Angelic Grace [1995] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 87 as developed in subsequent authority — but it does not. This is a defensible choice, since judicial development has been moving in the seat’s favour, but it means the Act misses a chance to consolidate a genuinely competitive English advantage in statutory form.
Comparative pressure: Singapore, Paris and Hong Kong
Assessing whether the Act strengthens London requires honest comparison with competitor seats. Singapore has pursued a more aggressive programme of statutory and rules-based innovation, including the SIAC Rules 2025 (in development at the time of writing), the recognition of third-party funding, the establishment of the Singapore International Commercial Court for hybrid arbitration-litigation matters, and statutory provisions on the law of the arbitration agreement that, since the BCY decision, have largely anticipated the section 6A position now reached in London (BCY v BCZ, 2016, [2017] 3 SLR 357). Singapore’s recent ascent in the Queen Mary survey to share the top position with London is partly the product of these innovations.
Paris benefits from the doctrine of autonomy of the arbitration agreement, judicial pro-arbitration tradition embodied in the Cour de cassation‘s consistent jurisprudence, and the 2011 reform of French arbitration law in Decree No 2011-48, which has aged well. The French approach to challenges, with limited grounds and disciplined procedural review, has been more streamlined than England’s section 67 procedure even after the 2025 amendments.
Hong Kong has codified confidentiality, recognised third-party funding, established outcome-related fee structures, and developed a body of pro-arbitration jurisprudence under the Arbitration Ordinance (Cap 609). The Hong Kong reforms have generally been bolder than the English equivalents, although they have arguably been delivered against a backdrop of greater political uncertainty about judicial independence.
Against this comparative landscape, the 2025 Act preserves London’s incumbent advantages but does not significantly extend them. Its conservatism is intelligible. The 1996 Act was a successful piece of legislation, and the Law Commission’s brief was explicitly limited to targeted amendment (Law Commission, 2023, para 1.7). But the strategic question is whether targeted amendment is the right response to competitive pressure from seats that are willing to innovate more aggressively. The better view is that consolidation is the right answer for now, given that London’s reputation rests substantially on stability and predictability, but that the strategy carries diminishing returns if competitor seats continue to differentiate through innovation.
The institutional dimension: courts, the LCIA, and the broader ecosystem
It would be incomplete to assess the Act without recognising that London’s strength as a hub depends only partly on its statutory framework. The Commercial Court, supported by the experience of judges such as Sir William Blair, Sir Bernard Eder, Cockerill J and Knowles J, has long been a substantial competitive asset. The LCIA Rules 2020 introduced electronic submissions, expedited procedures, and consolidation provisions ahead of many competitors (LCIA, 2020). The London Maritime Arbitrators Association (LMAA) terms govern a substantial volume of maritime arbitration. The City’s clustering of solicitors, barristers, expert witnesses, translators and arbitrators creates network effects that no statutory reform can replicate.
The 2025 Act interacts with this ecosystem in a complementary way. By removing doctrinal frictions (section 6A), reinforcing ethical standards (section 23A) and disciplining procedural inefficiency (the section 67 reform), the Act allows the institutional ecosystem to work more effectively. The Act’s competitive impact is therefore best understood as enhancing the value of London’s existing institutional advantages, rather than creating new ones. The marginal product of statutory reform, on this view, is positive but bounded.
The user perspective: what does the empirical evidence actually show?
The Queen Mary–White & Case surveys, while methodologically limited by their reliance on self-selecting respondents, consistently identify “national arbitration law” as a factor of moderate importance in seat selection, but ranked below “general reputation” and “neutrality and impartiality” (Queen Mary University of London and White & Case, 2021). This raises an empirical question: how much does a marginal improvement in the statute actually move the dial?
The honest answer is probably “less than enthusiastic commentary suggests.” Sophisticated arbitration users — corporate counsel, sovereign wealth funds, energy companies, financial institutions — select seats on the basis of multi-factor analyses in which the statutory framework is one input among many. Network effects, judicial reputation, neutrality perceptions, language and procedural familiarity, and pre-existing contracting patterns all weigh heavily. A reform that closes the Enka gap, codifies disclosure and streamlines section 67 will be welcomed by practitioners, but it will rarely cause a user to switch seats who would not otherwise have chosen London.
The competitive value of the 2025 Act is therefore retentive rather than acquisitive. It is the kind of reform that prevents the slow drift of users to alternative seats by addressing irritants identified by practitioners and academic commentators (Bantekas, 2023; Born, 2021). On that retentive measure, the Act is a success. But it should not be oversold as transformational.
Doctrinal coherence: does the Act improve the conceptual architecture of English arbitration law?
A separate question, somewhat distinct from competitive positioning, is whether the Act improves the doctrinal coherence of English arbitration law. The answer is mostly yes. Section 6A resolves a tension between the separability principle in section 7 and the implied-choice analysis in Enka, restoring conceptual alignment between the seat as the location of supervisory law and the seat as the source of the substantive law of the arbitration agreement. Section 23A clarifies the structure of the disclosure duty by separating it conceptually from the test for apparent bias. The section 67 reform reduces an awkward inconsistency between compétence-compétence and full de novo review.
These improvements matter beyond competitive positioning. They make English arbitration law easier to teach, easier to apply consistently across courts and tribunals, and easier to harmonise with international practice. Doctrinal coherence has its own value, independent of market share. To the extent that the 2025 Act achieves coherence improvements, it strengthens English arbitration law as a system, even where the competitive marginal product is modest.
The principal coherence concern that remains untouched is the relationship between section 68 (serious irregularity) and section 69 (appeal on a point of law). The Law Commission considered reform of section 69 but recommended only minor adjustments (Law Commission, 2023, paras 7.21–7.55). The continued availability of section 69 appeals, even with the requirement of agreement or leave, distinguishes London from Paris and Singapore. Whether this is a competitive asset (signalling rigorous judicial supervision) or a competitive liability (signalling intrusion on finality) is contested. The 2025 Act takes the orthodox view that section 69 should be preserved largely intact, which is defensible but represents a continued point of differentiation from civil-law-influenced seats.
Synthesis: a qualified strengthening
The cumulative analysis supports a qualified affirmative answer to the assignment question. The Arbitration Act 2025 strengthens London as a dispute resolution hub, but the strengthening is concentrated in three areas — the governing law of the arbitration agreement, the disclosure duty, and the section 67 procedure — and is defensive rather than expansionary. The Act preserves and modestly enhances London’s incumbent advantages without significantly extending them into territory where competitor seats have advanced.
Three considerations qualify the assessment. First, the absence of statutory codification of confidentiality, third-party funding regulation, and corruption-related procedural innovation represents foregone opportunities that competitor seats have already exploited. The 2025 Act’s competitive impact would have been greater had it addressed these gaps. Second, the strengthening operates principally through marginal improvements to a statutory framework already regarded as one of the best in the world; the marginal returns to further statutory improvement are therefore limited, and the Law Commission’s targeted approach reflects a realistic appraisal of where reform was most needed. Third, London’s competitive position depends substantially on factors outside the statutory framework — judicial expertise, institutional ecosystem, network effects — and these factors continue to evolve independently of the 2025 Act.
On the better view, the 2025 Act is best characterised as a successful exercise in retention rather than expansion. It addresses the doctrinal frictions that practitioners had identified as causing genuine cost and uncertainty, while preserving the stability and predictability that constitute London’s principal competitive virtues. For users who already choose London, the Act removes irritants and clarifies doctrine; for users who choose competitor seats, the Act offers little reason to switch. This is both the Act’s strength and its limitation.
The deeper question — whether London should have pursued bolder reform — admits no decisive answer. Bolder reform might have differentiated London more visibly but risked the destabilising effect of changing a successful framework. The Law Commission, and Parliament in adopting its recommendations, opted for stability. That choice can be defended as the right judgment in current market conditions, but it should be revisited if Singapore, Paris and Hong Kong continue to widen the gap on confidentiality, funding and procedural innovation. London’s competitive position is not eroded by the 2025 Act, but its medium-term security will depend on continued willingness to update the statutory framework as new pressures emerge.
Conclusion
The Arbitration Act 2025 strengthens London as a dispute resolution hub, but only modestly and in specific respects. Its three central reforms — section 6A on the law of the arbitration agreement, section 23A on arbitrator disclosure, and the section 67 procedural reforms — address concrete vulnerabilities exposed by Enka, Halliburton and Dallah. These reforms improve doctrinal coherence, reduce satellite litigation, and signal robust ethical standards. Yet the Act’s deliberately conservative scope omits reforms — on confidentiality, third-party funding, corruption procedure, and anti-suit codification — that competitor seats have addressed more aggressively.
The most important conclusion is that the Act’s competitive value is retentive rather than acquisitive: it secures incumbent users by removing irritants, but it does not significantly attract users who would otherwise choose alternative seats. Whether that is the right strategic response to growing competition from Singapore, Paris and Hong Kong is contested. The defensible case is that London’s reputation depends on stability and that incremental, well-targeted reform is the optimal strategy for a mature seat. The less reassuring case is that competitor seats are differentiating more sharply through innovation, and that continued conservatism risks slow erosion of London’s position. The 2025 Act takes the former view. It is a defensible choice, and probably the right one for now, but it should not be mistaken for the kind of reform that decisively strengthens London’s competitive position. London remains a leading hub; the Act ensures it stays one. Whether that is enough will depend not on the 2025 Act itself, but on the willingness of future reform to address the issues that this Act left for another day.
References
- Arbitration Act 1996 (UK).
- Arbitration Act 2025 (UK).
- Arbitration Ordinance (Cap 609) (Hong Kong).
- Bantekas, I. (2023) An Introduction to International Arbitration. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- BCY v BCZ [2017] 3 SLR 357 (Singapore High Court).
- Born, G. (2021) International Commercial Arbitration. 3rd edn. The Hague: Kluwer Law International.
- Civil Justice Council (2024) Review of Litigation Funding: Interim Report. London: Judiciary of England and Wales.
- Civil Procedure Rules 1998, SI 1998/3132 (UK).
- Dallah Real Estate and Tourism Holding Co v Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Government of Pakistan [2010] UKSC 46.
- Decree No 2011-48 of 13 January 2011 reforming the French law on arbitration (France).
- Dolling-Baker v Merrett [1990] 1 WLR 1205 (CA).
- Emmott v Michael Wilson & Partners Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 184.
- Enka Insaat Ve Sanayi AS v OOO Insurance Company Chubb [2020] UKSC 38.
- Halliburton Co v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd [2020] UKSC 48.
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- London Court of International Arbitration (2020) LCIA Arbitration Rules 2020. London: LCIA.
- Nigeria v Process & Industrial Developments Ltd [2023] EWHC 2638 (Comm).
- Queen Mary University of London and White & Case (2021) 2021 International Arbitration Survey: Adapting Arbitration to a Changing World. London: Queen Mary University of London.
- R (PACCAR Inc) v Competition Appeal Tribunal [2023] UKSC 28.
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- The Republic of Sierra Leone v SL Mining Ltd [2021] EWHC 286 (Comm).
- UniCredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC [2024] UKSC 30.
- West Tankers, Allianz SpA v West Tankers Inc (Case C-185/07) [2009] ECR I-663.
