Research On The Disclosure Of Third-Party Funding In International Arbitration

Nowadays,international arbitration community is cautious about the third-party funding.The reason is that third-party funding's involvement into arbitration may has an impact on the impartiality,integrity,and transparency of the arbitral proceedings.Besides the introduction and conclusion,this paper is made of three chapters.Chapter 1 first discusses the reasonability of disclosing third-party funding as a mandatory general obligation,from the perspectives of the relationships between funders and the funded parties,the duties of procedural good faith and procedural equality.It is considered that under the current international arbitration background,a mandatory general disclosure obligation is infeasible and unreasonable.Chapter 2 first introduces two specific procedural issues related to disclosure,namely,arbitrator conflicts of interest,security for costs and the subsequent adverse costs award.In the case of third-party funding,the relationships between funder and arbitrator may raise challenges about the impartiality and independence of the arbitrators,which may trigger the disclosure obligation of firnder and arbitrator.In order to measure the conflict of interest,it is necessary for the funded parties to disclose the identity of the funders.Security for costs and adverse costs award,which briefly explain the relevant standards for granting security for costs,analyze the impacts of disclosing certain funding details on the granting for security for costs.International arbitration cases show that the termination of funding provisions and the terms of bearing adverse costs award have reference value for the tribunal to grant security for costs,but not decisive factors.Second,privilege protection invoked by the funded parties may impose certain obstacles to the disclosure of funding documents.However,respondents' application for disclosure of documents related to funding also needs to meet specific requirements,and conditional disclosure is the key to balancing the rights between the funded parties and the respondents.Chapter 3 discusses the feasibility of solving the disclosure problems from two paths respectively.One is through indirect disclosure requirements triggered by specific procedural issues.The other is outside the existing rules and practice:the establishment of the industry regulatory organization and rules,and the revision to current arbitration rules.Finally,it summarizes our country and Singapore's responses toward the disclosure of third-party funding,and reasonably expects the formation of a more complete and transparent disclosure mechanism.