Every two years we marvel that there are more mega-awards in global arbitration than there are megaverdicts in the jackpot heaven of U.S. courts. Sure enough, our 2015 Arbitration Scorecard chronicles 10 awards of more than half a billion dollars in tussles for control of Russian hydrocarbons or Nigerian telecoms. That compares with nine judgments of like size over the same period in VerdictSearch, which tracks good old American slip-and-falls and tobacco cash gushers.
Everyone knows that parties like arbitration because it’s widely enforceable. But that’s only an advantage because litigation is not widely enforceable. Why not? Why is there no litigation equivalent to the 1958 New York Convention, which allows for easy recognition of arbitral awards in 155 nations? There actually is such a treaty—the Hague Convention on Choice of Courts Agreement—and Europe approved it on June 11.
