ARBITRATION LAW IN INDIA - A FEW RECENT TRENDS

Each subsequent amendment in the Arbitration law beginning from The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is a step forward to make India’s legal regime, domestic and international, arbitration-friendly.

- Sherry Samuel Oommen

The Indian subcontinent has in recent years become one of the largest economies, ranking 6th in the world and 3rd in Asia. As one of the largest economies in Asia, a substantial increase in the number of arbitration proceedings involving international agreements, contractual performance, and/or disputes about property or money, is quite unsurprising. This increase in the public’s reliance on alternate dispute resolution, the need to promote international trade, and to make India a centre for International Arbitration has led to the necessity of revisiting and revising the previously incorporated Arbitration law, namely the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“the Act”).

Therefore, on 9 August 2019 the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2019 (“the 2019 Amendment”), which brought various notable amendments to the Indian Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 (“the 1996 Act”), received the assent of the President and was published as Act No. 33 of 2019. Thereafter, on 4 November 2020, the Government of India introduced the Arbitration and Conciliation (Ordinance), 2020 (“the 2020 Ordinance”) which introduced 2 additional amendments, seeking “to address the concerns raised by stakeholders after the enactment of the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2019”.

Recently, on 10 March 2021, the Arbitration & Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2021 (“the 2021 Amendment”) gained Parliamentary assent and thereby replaced the 2020 Ordinance. The said Act was deemed to have come into force on 4 November 2020.