On 21 December 2024, Chen & Chang had the honor of co-hosting a conference titled “Chinese-Speaking Parties and Language Issues in International Arbitration.” The conference was organized in collaboration with the Attorneys Academy and ADR Committee of the Taiwan Bar Association (“TWBA”) and the Taiwan Chapter of the Ciarb EAB (“Taiwan Chapter”).
The conference was moderated by Helena Chen C.Arb FCIArb PhD (Chair, ADR Committee of TWBA). Florence Lee Esq., the current Executive Supervisor and the President-elect, was invited to deliver the opening remarks. Florence highly praised the ADR Committee’s outstanding contributions to promoting ADR and internationalization under the leadership of President Dagmar Mei-Nu Yu. She also expressed her vision for the TWBA to continue advancing relevant developments and opportunities in the future.
The conference featured Eugene Thong FCIArb, who drew on his multilingual expertise and experience at the ICC International Court of Arbitration to provide an in-depth analysis of common language issues in international arbitration and the challenges faced by Chinese-speaking parties, such as discrepancies in legal terminology across different Chinese-speaking jurisdictions. He then discussed how factors such as the parties' negotiation power may influence the choice of language in arbitration. By referring to practical arbitration cases, he engaged with the audience to explore issues such as the determination of language of arbitration in cases with different factual backgrounds and various ways that arbitration may be conducted bilingually in Chinese and English.
Under Helena’s effective moderation, both in-person and online audiences engaged actively with the speaker. The audience enhanced their knowledge in arbitration-clause drafting as well as several language-related issues and benefited tremendously from the conference.
Front row from right to left: Alison Chang FCIArb (Convenor, Taiwan Chapter; Vice-Chair, ADR Committee of TWBA), Helena Chen C.Arb FCIArb PhD (Chair, ADR Committee of TWBA), Florence Lee Esq. (Executive Supervisor, TWBA), Eugene Thong FCIArb
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