London

Arbitration's flexibility makes it uniquely suited to resolving disputes in the remote world which we now inhabit.

Parties can, for example, opt for a document-only arbitration or for all hearings to take place by video conference. E-filing and email correspondence have long been standard features and, in a joint statement last month, arbitral institutions have been quick to reassure parties that they are doing all they can to adapt further to the "new normal". Despite this show of unity, rivalry between international arbitral institutions will remain fierce and this competition is now likely to be reflected in their methods of doing business just as much as in their rules.

Even before the pandemic, international arbitration seemed to be growing without apparent limit, with the LCIA, ICC and SIAC recently reporting a record 2019. The LMAA experienced an increase in new cases of well over 10% and the number of international cases referred to HKIAC and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce also increased.

These results obviously take no account of ad hoc arbitration (apart from the LMAA) or those which take place under the auspices of smaller institutions or trade associations. The fall in references to arbitration seen in 2017 and 2018 is likely to lie more in the vicissitudes of global economic conditions than in any loss of enthusiasm for arbitration as an international dispute resolution mechanism. It obviously remains to be seen what effect the extraordinary events of this year will have the on the picture for 2020.

The 2019 figures provide some reassurance of London's continuing pre-eminence as a centre for international commercial arbitration. The findings of the QMUL/White & Case 2018 International Arbitration Survey were to similar effect.

This is not for lack of competition, not least from Singapore and Hong Kong. Once seen as upstarts, these seats have cemented solid regional reputations and thereby taken work which older European seats and institutions used to have or would have had. In the case of Singapore in particular, aggressive marketing (and undoubted efficiency and convenience of location) has led to remarkable success, especially among Indian disputants. Indeed the closure of LCIA's India office in 2016 was seen by some practitioners as an admission of defeat, reflecting the strikingly few arbitrations which were being referred to it.

Institution need not of course determine seat, but a significant part of the attraction of an arbitral body rests on the perception of its home city as an appropriate seat.

With choice of seat, much depends on an elusive sense of "general reputation". There are more concrete factors too, in particular impartial courts, the quality of judges, laws which promote arbitration and a history of enforcing arbitration agreements and arbitral awards. By all these measures, London's historic pre-eminence is easy to explain. The international status of English law has also been an important factor.

Yet none of this should be cause for complacency. In addition to vigorous and growing international competition there is now Brexit. Brexit has no necessary effect on the choice of London as an arbitral seat; it does not obviously affect the reasons why parties choose seats and – unlike English court judgments which may or may not be readily enforceable in the EU from 2021– London-seated arbitral awards will remain enforceable under the New York Convention.

The QMUL/White & Case 2018 survey found that 55% of respondents thought that Brexit would not affect London's choice as a seat. Many found that figure encouraging, but given the absence of rational reasons why Brexit should have any adverse effect, 55% could be seen as a troublingly low number.

Amongst those who thought that Brexit would have an adverse effect, which seat did they chiefly think would benefit? 70% said Paris, whose next arbitration week is due to take place at the beginning of April. Quite apart from Paris and the other usual suspects, the global arbitration world is becoming ever more fragmented; as the economic centre of gravity of the world moves east, centres such as Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur will rise to become competitors too.

The opening of the International Arbitration Centre in early 2019 and the relocation of the International Dispute Resolution Centre to new premises in 2021 are belated recognition that London's creaking facilities were not competing with the gleaming digital grandeur of, say, Maxwell Chambers in Singapore. But characteristic English tinkering is not enough. Concerted effort is needed because London will not survive on the memory of its past glory.

The first London International Disputes Week last May was perhaps the beginning of a sense that London will have to fight for its place in a globalised dispute resolution world. The English arbitration community must play a full role in that battle.

Shantanu Majumdar QC is a barrister at Radcliffe Chambers