Judging the Judges: Five Years of LCIA Arbitrator Challenge Jurisprudence

CIS parties remain among the active users of LCIA arbitration. The LCIA Annual Casework Report for 2024 confirms that parties from the CIS, including Russia and Belarus, continue to appear regularly in LCIA proceedings with 5% of LCIA arbitrations involving parties from CIS in 2023 and 3% in 2024. As noted in the LCIA Annual Casework Report for 2024, “the figures reported represent the percentage of parties that are from a particular region/jurisdiction, rather than the percentage of cases involving parties from a particular region or jurisdiction”.

In 2024, parties in LCIA arbitrations originated from 101 jurisdictions, and Russia remained within the top 6 nationalities of those originating parties.

As sanctions have become a structural feature of nearly every arbitration involving CIS participants, for sanctioned parties safeguarding impartial and independent adjudication is not theoretical. It has become central to procedural strategy. Although recent LCIA challenge decisions do not reflect sanctions-based removals due to lack of impartiality or independence, the potential for such arguments directly concerns CIS users.

The number of LCIA parties from CIS and the paramount importance of preserving arbitrators’ impartiality and independence make the present article directly relevant to CIS users navigating LCIA arbitration.

This article provides a structured analysis of the LCIA’s recently published arbitrator challenge decisions from 2017 to 2022. It examines the procedural and substantive grounds on which challenges were brought, the rate of success, and trends in challenge strategy.

Particular attention belongs to the application of the IBA Guidelines, the disclosure regime, and the evolving standards of impartiality. By categorising common grounds for both successful and unsuccessful challenges, the article derives practical lessons for arbitrators, counsel, and institutions alike. The findings appear in context of the broader reform efforts under the Arbitration Act 2025 and provide insights into the robustness of arbitrator independence under English-seated arbitrations.

Key observations

In particular, the following key observations emerge from the analysis of latest LCIA decisions on arbitrator challenges. Only two out of 39 challenges were upheld, underscoring the high threshold for disqualifying arbitrators. Respondents initiated the majority of challenges and increasingly targeted entire tribunals, while equally claimants and respondents challenge sole arbitrators.

Most of the published challenges rely on the 2014 LCIA Rules and predominantly on English law.

Most decisions appear within 2 to 3 months from the initial notice or filing of the challenge. Overall, the duration ranged from just over 1 month to 9 months, largely reflecting the complexity of the issues and the procedural conduct of the challenging party.

Notable successful challenges involved prolonged ties to respondents or their counsel. However, most challenges failed due to a lack of evidence, timing, or remoteness of the alleged connections. Procedural matters fall squarely within the discretion of the arbitral tribunal, and the threshold for successfully challenging an arbitrator on the basis of procedural dissatisfaction remains exceptionally high.

Courts will not engage in a substantive re-evaluation of such decisions when assessing the merits of a challenge application. As Commercial Court held in the Petrol Ranger case, challenges brought against arbitrators for their alleged failure to adopt suitable procedures

should only be available where the conduct of the arbitrator is such as to go so beyond anything that could reasonably be defended that substantial injustice has resulted or will result. The provision is not intended to allow the Court to substitute its own view as to how the arbitral proceedings should be conducted.

While repeat appointments do not inherently constitute grounds for removal, the LCIA has shown a willingness to consider patterns where a party or its counsel appears to systematically (as advised by the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration 2014 (IBA Guidelines)) select the same arbitrator, particularly in parallel or related disputes.

Notwithstanding, multiple consecutive or concurrent appointments in the overlapping cases do not, without more, justify a challenge—particularly where the same parties take part in the cases.

LCIA examines even minimal overlaps in past joint counsel or academic work more closely when a challenge is timely and the arbitrator made no prior disclosure.

The LCIA decisions now more clearly differentiate between genuine doubts about impartiality and strategic behaviour intended to delay or discredit proceedings.

Strident language of an arbitrator, unless part of a broader pattern of hostile conduct against a party, does not establish a lack of independence or impartiality.

Practical implications

Based on those key observations, the following practical implications for arbitrators and parties emerge. Arbitrators should maintain rigorous standards of disclosure and avoid strong or casual language that could be misconstrued. Parties need to obtain a realistic understanding of the high threshold for a successful challenge. A dismissed challenge should not be conflated with a miscarriage of justice. Apart from that, unrepresented parties should be aware.

The LCIA has taken steps toward more detailed reasoning in published challenge outcomes, which assists parties in understanding how it weighs factors like timing, context, and proximity. This confirms the LCIA’s commitment to transparency and provides the CIS parties with opportunity to make more carefully reasoned decisions in challenging arbitrators.

Read the full text of this article

Yan Kalish and Veronika Grubenko