Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

UK Arbitration Act 2025: curtailed jurisdictional challenges, codified summary disposal and emergency arbitrator enforcement, seat law default for arbitration agreements, enhanced arbitrator disclosure and immunity, and refined court support

Published on: 06 March 2025

Published by a Law360 reporter

Legal News

Article summary

Consequently, the 2025 Act tracks shifting currents in arbitration, gathers together notable court-led developments and unveils focused reforms to boost procedural efficiency, enforcement and the powers of tribunals. Though the 2025 Act’s changes are incremental rather than radical, they tackle a number of persistent issues. New curbs on jurisdictional objections, the statutory footing for emergency arbitrators and the arrival of summary disposal are especially impactful. Notably, the new act settles the disputed governing law of arbitration agreements, strengthens arbitrator disclosure obligations and fine-tunes how arbitration interfaces with the courts. This piece reviews the principal features of the new act, setting them against the 1996 regime and assessing what they mean for commercial, investor-state and maritime arbitration. It closes by flagging the headline lessons for arbitration specialists, with a focus on procedural tactics and enforceability.

Key elements

Jurisdictional challenges and the Kompetenz-Kompetenz Principle

Under the 1996 Act, a party contesting a tribunal’s jurisdiction could pursue a complete rehearing before the courts under section 67, even after the tribunal had already decided the point. This effectively offered an unhappy party a second bite at the cherry, leading to avoidable delay and further unnecessary inefficiency...

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