Views
2025 New Chinese Arbitration Law: Improvements Made and To Be Further Made
(This post is written by Dr. Chen Zhi who is an Attorney at Zhiheng Law Firm Guangzhou Office, PRC).
I. Introduction
On September 12, 2025, the newly revised Arbitration Law (hereinafter New Arbitration Law) of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter “PRC”) was adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (hereinafter as “SCNPC”) with the subsequent promulgation by the President of PRC, and will take effect on March 1, 2026. The New Arbitration Law features novelties such as the introduction of “arbitration seat”, limited liberalization of ad hoc arbitration, enshrining online arbitration, a higher threshold for eligibility of arbitrator, and a shorter duration for applying for annulment of arbitral award from six months to three months. Nonetheless, some articles of the New Law leave room for further discussion. This article combs through the history of revision, delves into the highlights and remaining gaps of the New Arbitration Law, and provides insights into its significance for the development of commercial arbitration in Mainland China from the perspective of an arbitration practitioner in Mainland China. Read more
Major amendment to Chinese Arbitration Act after three decades
This guest post is written by Jie Zheng, Assistant Professor & Research Fellow, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
On 12th September 2025, the 17th session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress passed the Amendment to the Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter “Chinese Arbitration Act”) to be effective from 1st March 2026[1], which was first adopted in 1994. Since its adoption, China has undergone enormous economic reforms and a more urgent need to align the legislation with international arbitration practices. There were only two minor revisions in 2009 and 2017 to fix technical inconsistencies with other procedural laws. In July 2021, the Ministry of Justice of China released a Draft Revision of the Arbitration Law for public consultation. [2] This was the first comprehensive reform since 1994. The draft was reviewed by the Sanding Committee of the National People’s Congress three times. Read more
Personal Jurisdiction, Consent, and the Law of Agency
I have long argued – in articles, blog posts, and amicus briefs – that it violates due process to invoke a forum selection clause to obtain personal jurisdiction over a defendant who was not a party to the agreement in which the clause appears. This position has not yet achieved universal acceptance. The state courts in New York, in particular, have repeatedly held that forum selection clauses can be used to assert personal jurisdiction over non-party defendants who are “closely related” to the parties or the transaction. In this blog post, I use a recent case—Bandari v. QED Connect Inc.—decided by Magistrate Judge Gary Stein (SDNY) to highlight some of the problems with the “closely related” test. Read more
News
Registration Open – Book Launch: The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements: A Commentary
Registration is open for the book launch celebrating the publication of The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements: A Commentary, to be held in hybrid format in The Hague on 11 December 2025 from 1.30 p.m. to 4.45 p.m. (CET). The book launch will coincide with the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the 2005 Choice of Court Convention.
The book launch will consist of two session. In the first session, the authors and discussants will explore selected chapters of the book. Brooke Marshall (University of Oxford) and Stephanie Francq (Catholic University of Louvain) will discuss the manifest injustice and public policy exception in Article 6 of the Convention; Louise Ellen Teitz (Roger Williams University) and Fausto Pocar (University of Milan) will discuss declarations under Articles 21 and 22 and accommodating multiple legal systems; and Gilles Cuniberti (University of Luxembourg, EAPIL) and Adrian Briggs KC (University of Oxford) will discuss the law applicable to the issue of consent to choice of court agreements. The second session of the event will discuss the practical operation of the Convention and the practical application of the text, with the participation of Delphia Lim (Ministry of Law of Singapore), Colin Seouw (Colin Seouw Chambers LLC), and Anselmo Reyes (Singapore International Commercial Court). Dr Christophe Bernasconi (HCCH) will provide opening remarks, and Melissa Ford and Dr Ning Zhao (HCCH) will moderate the discussions.
For more information, and to register, please visit: https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/specialised-sections/choice-of-court/hcch-book-launch
This post is published by the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference of Private International Law (HCCH).
Fourth Issue of the Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly for 2025
The fourth issue of the Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly for 2025 has recently been published. It contains the following articles, cases notes and book review.
Michael Howard, “The True History of the Origin of the Mareva Injunction or Freezing Order”
Fifty years ago, in 1975, a revolutionary innovation occurred in English procedural law, the introduction of what is officially named the freezing injunction, formerly and to some extent even now known as the Mareva injunction. It was the consequence of two decisions of the Commercial Court, the Karageorgis and Mareva cases. The thesis of this article, lightly camouflaged, is that these cases and this change were brought about by a combination of four factors which are present in most such developments of the common law: the personal, the institutional, the technical legal and the accidental. It is an attempt to present all of them and to show that the first and particularly the last were disproportionately large contributors.
Masood Ahmed, “State Immunity and the New York Convention”
Adrian Briggs, “Book Review of Hong Kong Private International Law” (by Wilson Lui and Anselmo Reyes)
My views
I read the interesting—but in my view unconvincing—critical review by Emeritus Professor Adrian Briggs of “Private International Law in Hong Kong” (by Wilson Lui and Anselmo Reyes). My reading of the review is that Briggs laments the authors’ limited engagement with English sources, suggesting that because Hong Kong’s private international law is not as fully developed as Singapore’s, English texts and cases should operate as gap-fillers.
I take a different view. I am pleased to see Asian private international law scholars asserting a more autonomous and context-sensitive approach to developing their conflict-of-laws rules. That intellectual independence is healthy for the discipline, and it is precisely the direction I believe African private international law should pursue.
Virtual Workshop (in English) on December 5, 2025: Béligh Elbalti on “The Double Face of Private International Law: Reconsidering Its Colonial Entanglements”
On Friday, December 5, 2025, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (CEST). Dr. Béligh Elbalti (Osaka University) will speak, in English, about the topic
“The Double Face of Private International Law: Reconsidering Its Colonial Entanglements”
In its general discourse, private international law (conflict of laws) is often presented as a discipline grounded in principles such as sovereignty, the equality of states, and comity. Its defining traits are said to flow from this premise of equality between legal orders, including its claim to neutrality, its pursuit of international harmony in cross-border cases, and its role in coordinating diverse legal systems. However, it is striking that private international law developed in an international context marked by domination, inequality, and subordination, a context that challenged the very premises on which the discipline claimed to rest.
Within this broader context, private international law appears to have played a dual role. On the one hand, it served as an instrument of colonial domination, particularly by denying its foundational premises to legal systems not regarded as “civilized”. In these contexts, instead of applying the ordinary methods of private international law, alternative mechanisms were employed to manage foreignness, most notably through systems of extraterritoriality – whether in the form of consular jurisdiction, mixed courts, or foreign courts operating in colonized or semi-colonized territories. On the other hand, private international law also functioned as an instrument for restoring sovereignty and achieving independence. The abolition and dismantling of extraterritorial regimes required colonized and semi-colonized states to meet the substantive and institutional conditions considered necessary for recognition as a “civilized nation”. This included, among other reforms, the establishment of a functioning system of private international law, alongside the adoption of substantive and procedural legal frameworks that guaranteed equal rights and protection for foreigners.
The presentation will be followed by open discussion. All are welcome. More information and sign-up here.
If you want to be invited to these events in the future, please write to veranstaltungen@mpipriv.de.