WAMD satellite event: The Prague Rules on Conduct of the Taking of Evidence: an alternative to the IBA Rules?

On Thursday, May 24, GESSEL hosted a WAMD satellite event: The Prague Rules on Conduct of the Taking of Evidence: an alternative to the IBA Rules? The Prague Rules are intended to tackle the issue of time- and costs-efficiency of arbitral proceedings, particularly those involving cases between the parties from civil law jurisdictions and generally of a lower complexity.

The discussion covered issues such as: proactive role of the Tribunal; fact finding; different types of evidence (documentary evidence, factual or expert witness statements), jura novit curia principle, hearing, assistance in amicable settlement; adverse inference and allocation of costs.

The discussion was chaired by coordinators and members of the Prague Rules Working Group, including Vladimir Khvalei, Alexandre Khrapoutski and Olena Perepelynska, as well as Dr. Konrad Czech, who joined the panel of coordinators and members of the Prague Rules Working Group as its moderator. The event provided arbitration practitioners with a unique opportunity to contribute to fine-tuning of the new tool in soft law of international arbitration, which could be particularly useful in their arbitration practice.