Daniel Wilmot, an African disputes specialist and partner in our International Arbitration team, was a speaker at the recent Tanzania Institute of Arbitrators’ annual arbitration conference.
Entitled “New Era: Arbitration Act 2020”, the conference celebrated the passing by Tanzania of new arbitration legislation called the Arbitration Act 2020. Speakers from around the world were invited to present a paper on a topic of their choosing to mark the special occasion.
With the new legislation being modelled heavily on the English Arbitration Act 1996, Daniel’s presentation sought to compare the English legislation with its Tanzanian counterpart. Entitled “Challenging awards: Attitudes, approaches and antagonisms – lessons from the English Arbitration Act 1996”, Daniel focused his paper on the statutory options available to a party to challenge an arbitral award in each jurisdiction and considered what lessons Tanzania could draw from the experiences of challenging awards under the English regime.
He concluded that the Tanzanian courts would, like their English equivalents, play a crucial role in interpreting and applying the provisions of the Tanzanian legislation. It remains to be seen, he said, how the courts will approach this role. The direction chosen would likely be seen as one of the many bellwethers of the jurisdiction’s attitude towards arbitration more generally.
Daniel’s session, excellently moderated by Ms Mercy Okiro, was shared with Dr Rukia Baruti, Arbitrator and Secretary General of the African Arbitration Association, and Advocate George Mandepo, Director of Arbitration in the Office of the Solicitor General of Tanzania.
The conference, chaired by the esteemed president of the Tanzania Institute of Arbitrators, Ms Madeline Kimei, received presentations from a variety of speakers, including Mr Emeka Obegolu, President of the Pan African Lawyers Union, and Ms Jane Davies Evans, barrister at 3 Verulam Buildings (London). The presentations covered such topics as the impact of the new Tanzanian legislation on future investor-state disputes and how the new statutory regime was a golden opportunity to facilitate the building of capacity for local arbitrators.
The conference benefited greatly from attendees who engaged with each of the presentations and posed observations and challenging questions throughout. If those Q&A sessions are anything to judge by, the future of arbitration in Tanzania certainly looks bright indeed.
A recording of the webinar is available here (password: qend=C9%)
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