Arbitration Update: July 2026 | Cooke, Young & Keidan

We outline below the significant arbitration developments in the second quarter of 2026:

The ICC Rules of Arbitration 2026 entered into force on 1 June 2026, introducing ex parte relief.
The ICC releases its 2025 statistics. Out of 30 Emergency Arbitrator applications, 6 were fully granted.
The English Court granted an ASI on a “quasi-contractual” basis (Maxamcorp International SL v Eurotel LLC [2026] EWHC 666 (Comm)).

I. Emergency Arbitration: Developments in the ICC Rules 2026

The ICC Rules 2026 came into force on 1 June 2026. Notably, they permit ex parte orders and develop emergency arbitrator procedures.

An emergency arbitrator can be appointed on an urgent basis to address an application for emergency interim measures which cannot otherwise await the constitution of an arbitral tribunal.

Emergency arbitrator proceedings may now be initiated not only against signatories to the arbitration agreement and their successors, but also against “any party for which the President is satisfied, based on information in the Application, that an arbitration agreement binding such party may exist”.

The update is expected to make emergency arbitration more accessible in increasingly common, complex multi-party proceedings, with the ICC stating that the update reflects the “present-day realities of international trade”.

Moreover, the emergency arbitrator is now empowered to grant a “a preliminary order directing another party not to frustrate the purpose of the Application”, the request for which “may be made and decided upon without notice to all other parties” (i.e., ex parte). A party may therefore find itself bound by an arbitral order without having had the opportunity to make its case as to whether that order should be granted.

The process for seeking such ex parte relief is as follows:

The Secretariat will transmit the application and the request for a preliminary order to all other parties as soon as the emergency arbitrator has decided on the preliminary order request (Appendix IV, Article 7(3)).
If the preliminary order is granted, the emergency arbitrator must immediately give all other parties a reasonable opportunity to present their case (Appendix IV, Article 7(4)).
The Emergency Arbitrator can modify the preliminary order (Appendix IV, Article 7(4)).

It remains to be seen whether the safeguard imposed will adequately resolve the tension between an applicant’s interest in urgently obtaining relief and respondent’s right to be heard – particularly given the consent driven foundations of the arbitral process. The other issues that will be debated include:

Whether national courts will be prepared to enforce preliminary orders granted on an ex parte
The absence of safeguards that exist in English courts when applying for ex parte relief such as the duty of full and frank disclosure and the requirement for a cross undertaking in damages.
The threshold/test that should be applied by the Emergency Arbitrator in granting (or rejecting) preliminary ex parte

Interestingly, the LCIA is currently consulting on changes to the LCIA Arbitration Rules. Given that ex parte relief has now been introduced into the ICC Rules (and into the SIAC Rules in 2025), the LCIA will no doubt consider similar changes.

In this regard, we note that the Arbitration Act 1996 (as amended in 2025) does not enact Article 17B of the UNCITRAL Model Law, which provides that “a party may, without notice to any other party, make a request for an interim measure”. The Arbitration Act 1996 therefore does not expressly empower a tribunal to grant without notice/ex parte relief.

Moreover, Section 33 of the Arbitration Act 1996 requires the tribunal to give “each party a reasonable opportunity of putting his case and dealing with that of his opponent”. This is a mandatory rule and cannot be amended by agreement of the parties. Accordingly, the cogency of the argument that Section 33 is not infringed because a party against whom an ex parte order has been made can present its case after the order has been granted remains to be tested.

II. ICC 2025 Dispute Resolution Statistics: An Overview

In early July 2026, the ICC published its annual Dispute Resolution Statistics, providing a comprehensive overview of disputes submitted to the ICC International Court of Arbitration and the ICC International Centre for ADR.

881 arbitrations were filed under the ICC Rules in 2025, with an aggregate caseload value of US$299 billion (falling from $354bn in 2024). Disputes ranged from very low value (below US$2,500) up to a single case valued at US$31 billion. 41% of the cases did not exceed US$4 million.

The majority of ICC arbitrations (69.4%) involve cross-border disputes. Paris remaining as the leading seat with 82 cases, followed by London with 78, New York with 44, Singapore with 42 and Geneva with 27.

Further, three sectors account for close to half of all new ICC filings:

Construction and engineering: 28%
Energy: 15%
Transportation: 5.5%

As to emergency arbitrators, the Report provides that during the course of 2025, 30 applications were made seeking urgent measures from emergency arbitrators – allowing parties to obtain a decision within 15 days. Of those 30 applications, orders were rendered in 25 (with the remainder withdrawn or suspended) whereby relief was dismissed in 15 applications, fully granted in 6, and partially granted in 4 applications.

III. The decision in Maxamcorp Internation SL and continuing support for ASI relief

In Maxamcorp International SL v Eurotel LLC [2026] EWHC 666 (Comm), the Claimant sought and obtained an Anti-Suit Injunction (ASI). Notably, the Defendant (Eurotel) was not a signatory to the relevant arbitration agreements. Instead, the Defendant was the purported assignee of contracts that contained the relevant arbitration agreements.

Typically, ASIs are obtained on either a contractual or a non-contractual basis. Interestingly, in this case English Court granted the ASI on the “quasi-contractual basis”.

As Eurotel was not a signatory to the arbitration agreements, the Claimant was unable to rely on the ‘contractual’ basis for ASI relief. However, notably, rather than turn to the traditional requirements of the ‘non-contractual’ test for ASI relief – being the requirement for an applicant to show that the respondent’s conduct is vexatious or oppressive or that it interferes with the English courts’ due process – it instead relied on principles of ‘conditioned rights’.

That principle provides that the same test applies as in conventional contractual ASI applications where:

“the respondent is seeking to assert a contractual right without respecting an incident or condition of that right which requires the claim to be asserted in an English-seated arbitration.”

The Court held that Eurotel could not pursue claims under the relevant agreements because its rights thereunder were “conditioned” by the requirement to arbitrate, granting the ASI.