Insights

Washington – July 20, 2021: Crowell & Moring’s International Dispute Resolution Group has been included in the 14th edition of Global Arbitration Review's GAR 100, a guide to the top 100 law firms with international arbitration capabilities. GAR is one of the leading journals of public and private arbitration.

London – September 9, 2020: Crowell & Moring was shortlisted as a finalist in the International Arbitration Team of the Year category at the Legal Business Awards 2020, celebrating the best in the legal profession.

Washington – May 5, 2017: Global Arbitration Review (GAR) has named Crowell & Moring LLP to its 10th edition of the “GAR 100,” an annual ranking of the top 100 arbitration practices in the world. GAR is considered the leading international journal of commercial and treaty arbitration. This marks the third consecutive year Crowell & Moring has been named to this list and the sixth time overall.

On 18 September 2024, the UK Supreme Court handed down its judgment in UniCredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC [2024] UKSC 30.  The judgment considers several significant issues relevant to international arbitration.  Primarily, though, it reaffirms: (i) the English court’s strong support for arbitration, in general; (ii) the steps it is prepared to take to hold parties to their agreement to arbitrate; and (iii) the current position for determining the governing law of an arbitration agreement, in the absence of an express election by the parties.

On 19 March 2024, the Government followed through on a promise from the Ministry of Justice to introduce draft legislation to reverse the effect of  R (on the application of PACCAR Inc & Ors) v Competition Appeal Tribunal & Ors [2023] UKSC 28.  The effect of this ruling was discussed in our prior alert and follow on commentary discussing its effect on group competition litigation and initial government reform proposals. Should the bill pass, agreements to provide third party funding to litigation or advocacy services in England will no longer be required to comply with the Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2013 (“DBA Regulations”) to be enforceable.

In this alert we discuss recent developments in the regulation of third party funding since R (on the application of PACCAR Inc & Ors) v Competition Appeal Tribunal & Ors [2023] UKSC 28, (“PACCAR”) which we discussed in our prior alert. In Alex Neill Class Representative Limited v Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited et al. [2023] CAT 73, the first analysis of a third-party litigation funding agreement (“LFA”) to take place since PACCAR, finding that an optional payment mechanism based on a cut of damages “only to the extent enforceable and permitted by applicable law” will not render the whole LFA an unenforceable damages-based agreement (“DBA”). Meanwhile, the government intends to enact a legislative amendment to make non-lawyer LFAs for group opt-out competition proceedings enforceable, but calls have quickly begun for the government to go further.