Australia to overhaul its arbitration law

In a previous post, we had discussed some proposed amendments to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act. India appears to be not the only country currently engaged in the exercise of completely overhauling its arbitration laws. On 7th May (Friday), the Office of the Attorney General for Australia published a press release welcoming the decision by the Standing Committee of the Attorneys - General to adopt uniform national laws on domestic arbitration. 

Under the current Australian framework, international arbitration is governed by the International Arbitration Act, 1974, a federal statute, and domestic arbitration is governed by the Commercial Arbitration Act (CCA), as adopted by each of the six States and two Territories. Though some uniform provisions have been incorporated into the CCA through amendments of 1984 and 1993, the provisions of CAA vary largely from one State to another.

The new Model Commercial Arbitration Bill is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law and its adoption by all the States and Territories is expected to result in uniformity not only between the arbitration laws of different provinces but also between the legal frameworks governing international and domestic arbitrations.

The text of the Model Bill does not appear to have been made available to the public yet. It is interesting to note that the adoption of the Model Bill has followed an announcement by the Commonwealth and the New South Wales Government of the establishment of a dedicated international dispute resolution center based in Sydney.