16 | LEXPERT • June 2019 | www.lexpert.ca/usguide
More
US firms
choose to
seat their
arbitrations
in Canada
Canada, and Toronto in particular, has emerged as a hub for
international arbitration for many reasons — and US attor-
neys and in-house counsel would do well to heed them.
"From the perspective of a US party involved in an inter-
national dispute, the reality is that the other side will rarely
want the arbitration seated in the US," says Anne-Marie
Whitesell, an international arbitrator who is Faculty Direc-
tor of the Program on International Arbitration and Dispute
Resolution at Georgetown University Law Center in Wash-
ington, DC, and also a member arbitrator at Arbitration
Place in Toronto. "But Canada is viewed as a neutral, open
and welcoming jurisdiction that is convenient, comfortable,
has an international flavor because it has both civil and com-
mon law jurisdictions, has the UNCITRAL Model Law as
the basis of its arbitration legislation, and boasts commer-
cially savvy courts."
OUR JUDGES
ARE MORE
HANDS-OFF. OUR
SYSTEM IS LESS
LITIGIOUS. OUR
COUNTRY IS MORE
WELCOMING TO
INTERNATIONAL
WITNESSES. AND
SEATING A CASE
HERE IS JUST
AS CONVENIENT.
BY JULIUS
MELNITZER
Dispute Resolution
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK
