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On 30 December 2024, the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) released an updated costs and duration analysis. Its report may be found .

This is its third such report and it covers all LCIA arbitrations which reached a final award between 1 January 2017 and 12 May 2024. The previous report, published in 2017, had built on the first which had appeared in 2015. It covered all LCIA cases which reached a final award in the four years between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2016. Instead of continuing to build on the data published in 2017, the LCIA has chosen to compare the data from that earlier period with the new data. Its analysis indicates that LCIA arbitration has become slower and more expensive during the last eight years. The median duration of cases has increased from 16 to 20 months and the median cost (LCIA and tribunal fees and charges) has increased from US$97,000 to US$117,653.

The comparison between these two periods is not one between apples and oranges. The LCIA’s caseload in 2023 remained remarkably similar to that in 2013.  The institution reported that 290 arbitrations were referred to it in 2013 and 368 in 2023, a modest difference of 27%.  Commodities transactions, loans and shareholders’ agreements all featured prominently in the caseloads in both years. In 2013, 18.6% of parties were from the UK and in 2023 the proportion was 15%. The revolution in the LCIA’s caseload took place in the preceding decade. In 2004 fewer than 100 arbitrations were referred to the institution. In 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis, it saw 272 arbitrations referred to it and 502 appointments of arbitrators. Only 13% of parties were from the UK in that year.

On the other hand, the comparisons with the data of other institutions, which the LCIA makes in its report, do resemble attempts to compare apples with oranges. As pointed out in the post Arbitration statistics 2023: rising caseloads and repeat appointments, the caseload of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is quite different from the LCIA’s. In 2023, transportation, metal and raw materials, and general trade and distribution were among the sectors representing 3% to 6% of the ICC’s 870 new cases. Sale and purchase contracts comprised 16.3% of the range of contracts in dispute. In contrast, in the LCIA in the same year 36% of arbitrations were in the transport and commodities sectors and 31% of contracts were for the sale of goods.

In these sectors, parties do not use the major institutions as much as their trade associations and ad hoc arbitration. The Grain and Feed Trade Association (Gafta) reports that in its 2023/2024 financial year, it received 301 new arbitration claims. Members of the London Maritime Arbitrators Association (LMAA) reported that they received 3268 appointments in 2023 in an estimated 1845 new references. Gafta saw 154 first tier awards issued in the same financial year with an average full duration of 8 months and average total arbitration costs of £16,077. The LMAA reports 436 awards in 2023. It does not publish information about costs and duration but its figure for awards includes 95 final awards made under its Small Claims Procedure (SCP), which has a fixed fee of £5,000 and a strict procedural timetable under which an award is usually made within 4 to 6 months of commencement.

Across its entire caseload during the 7.36 years covered by its new report, the LCIA saw 1,625 awards issued, of which 616 were the final awards which formed the dataset analysed. The average number of awards per year was thus 221, of which 84 were final awards. This is valuable information: the LCIA does not disclose numbers of awards in its annual caseload reports. According to this information, around a quarter of LCIA arbitrations reach a final award.

In contrast, the ICC’s detailed annual reports confirm that, in 2023, it saw 520 awards, of which 384 were final. The numbers of final awards in 2021 and 2022 were 465 and 412 respectively, making a total of 1261 final awards over the three years 2021 to 2023, more than double the LCIA’s total for 7.36 years. According to the ICC, the median duration of arbitrations which concluded by way of a final award in 2023 was 25 months. This is considerably longer than the LCIA’s 20 months but the willingness of most parties to see a case through to a final award, usually without bifurcation or partial awards on the way, is one of the peculiarities of ICC arbitration, explained in part by the one-off and complex nature of many ICC cases.

In terms of the composition of its caseload and the readiness of parties to settle cases before a final award is issued, the LCIA may more easily be compared to the Singapore International Arbitrations Centre (SIAC). However, SIAC has its own peculiarity: every year it sees more filings of new arbitrations than appointments of arbitrators. Settlements regularly take place not only before an award is made but before a tribunal is constituted. See our 2021 post, Arbitrations without arbitrators: an institutional paradox. SIAC reported that 167 awards were issued in 2023. It had seen 663 new cases filed in that year and 359 appointments of arbitrators. In 2022, 161 awards were issued. While SIAC overtook the LCIA in terms of new filings in 2016 and has not looked back, it has not yet caught up in terms of tribunals appointed and awards issued.

The LCIA’s new report discloses that SIAC’s median costs for arbitrations with an amount in dispute of less than US$1 million make it more competitive for this category, which accounted for 31% of the LCIA’s caseload in 2023. The comparative table of five institutions in its 2017 report had the LCIA with the lowest median costs (US$32,000) for such cases, just below SIAC (US$33,000). The table in the new report has the LCIA in fourth place on US$37,000 and SIAC in first on US$27,000. The difference of US$10,000 is substantial for a lower value case. The LCIA’s administrative charges of US$14,000 (a 40% increase on US$10,000 in the 2013-2016 period) are particularly high. The LCIA retains first place in the other categories, though SIAC is a close second for disputes in the range US$1 million to US$10 million, which accounted for another 30% of the LCIA’s caseload in 2023. In this category, the LCIA’s median costs rose from US$79,000 in the 2013-2016 period to US$114,000 with its administrative charges seeing another substantial increase from US$15,000 to US$22,000.

The LCIA’s time-based system for both arbitrators’ fees and its own administrative charges makes for lower costs in larger cases than an ad valorem regime. As the LCIA’s new report notes, the difference becomes more pronounced as the amount in dispute increases, notably in the range US$100 million to US$1 billion (9% of the LCIA’s caseload in 2023).