Workshop to Promote Mauritius as an Arbitration Centre for Africa

Experts on international arbitration and professionals in the global business and international financial services sector attended last week, at the Financial Services Commission (FSC) House in Ebène, a workshop on international arbitration.

Organised at the initiative of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) and the Mauritius International Arbitration Centre (MIAC), in collaboration with the FSC, the actors evolving in the above sectors were called upon to analyse the promotion of Mauritius as an Arbitration Centre for Africa.

The workshop also served as platform for the delegates to share their views and thoughts on how international arbitration would in practice work in the Mauritian context as well as to see how international arbitration deals with difficult situations. Besides providing an overview of international arbitration and its importance, the workshop focused on ways and means whereby parties to international business disputes are increasingly using arbitration to resolve their differences outside the parameters of traditional courts.

In her address, the Chief Executive of the FSC, Ms Clairette Ah-Hen, underpinned the increasing role of international commercial arbitration and its services at global level. According to her, information and communication technology (ICT) has given a new dimension to international commercial transactions and businesses whereby e-commerce has now become an indispensable part of the daily commercial activities. The development of arbitration will bring further economic benefits to Mauritius since it will invariably bring overseas parties to Mauritius, which in turn will benefit not just the legal professionals, but also other financial service providers, she added.

Ms Ah-Hen also emphasised on the scope of international commercial arbitration which, she pointed out has widened due to several factors namely, disputes arising out of contracts on sale of goods, distributorship, agency and intermediary contracts, construction agreements, engineering and infrastructure contracts, intellectual property contracts, domain name dispute resolutions, online dispute resolutions, joint venture agreements, maritime contracts, employment contracts and medico-legal disputes

Among the topics on the agenda were: An Introduction to Arbitration in Mauritius; Why is international arbitration a benefit to the legal system in a well regulated country like Mauritius; Developing the international arbitration regime in Mauritius; and How does an arbitration in practice work under the LCIA-MIAC Rules.

It will be recalled that international arbitration is governed under the International Arbitration Act 2008 which has been designed with the aim to create and promote a new area of services and to make Mauritius a favourable jurisdiction for all international commercial arbitrations, whether such arbitrations arise under ad-hoc arbitration agreements, or under institutional rules such as those of the International Chamber of Commerce or the London Court of International Arbitration.