如今在中国，国际仲裁业务同其法律服务一样，已成为一个增长领域。在制度变化和一系列跨国交易的影响下，无论是争端本身和提供争端解决服务的组织数量都迅速增长。中国企业也日渐愿意把争议提到到中国以外的地区进行仲裁，反映出企业自身的成熟化和国际化。
当大多数业界人士认为国际律师事务所较本地事务所在该领域的竞争力更强，但国际律所的律师们却指出本地律师正在占领越来越多的仲裁市场份额。
International arbitration – like everything else in China today – has become a growth industry. Spurred by institutional changes and a procession of cross-border transactions, both the number of disputes and the institutions providing dispute resolution services have proliferated.
Meg Utterback, a former Pillsbury & Wood international arbitration specialist who recently joined King & Wood as a partner, lists increasing global ties and new structural regimes as drivers for the rise of international arbitration. “We are seeing a lot of developments made by arbitration centres, especially local ones like CIETAC. Not only has the quality of arbitrators improved drastically but also the country as a whole has grown more receptive to foreign arbitral awards,” she says.
Chinese companies are increasingly willing to take their disputes outside China, which also reflects the growing sophistication of PRC corporations. “All the big businesses in China know what arbitration is – what they are really interested in now is which are the best seats and institutions for their interest,” says Justin D’Agostino, aHerbert Smith Hong Kong-based litigation and arbitration partner and international arbitration specialist. “They have become just as sophisticated as those long-term arbitration users in other parts of the world,” he adds.
While most people would assume that international law firms have a competitive edge in the field over local practitioners, international lawyers themselves are acknowledging the fact that local firms have been seizing much of that market share. “Local firms are starting to branch out and do more international arbitration work, to compete with us on that level. They are recruiting many non-locals so that they can do the international work themselves. This becomes an attractive product for their existing clients,” says D’Agostino.
MHP’s Martin Hu adds that while procedures and home-ground rules may be foreign-based in international arbitration, the substantive legal issues are often Chinese. “Local lawyers will continue to play a very important role in international arbitrations, and it will never be easy to omit a PRC counsel in arbitration involving a Chinese party,” he said. ALB
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