Several prominent international arbitration institutions used the downtime imposed by COVID-19 in 2020-21 — the suspension of travel, the prevalence of remote work and the expanded use of videoconferencing to overhaul their rules. These institutions include the Asian International Arbitration Centre, the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration, the International Cham- ber of Commerce, JAMS, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, the London Court of International Arbitration, the Swiss Arbitration Centre and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Their revised rules contained mainly predictable and conservative changes to existing provisions, including, for example, rules on joinder, third-party funding and summary disposition.

The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) sat out the pandemic rulemaking but recently overhauled and supplemented its 2016 rules. Its new rules, which took effect at the beginning of this year, include both updates — provisions dealing with the focus of COVID-era amendments at other institutions — and innovations — new rules not previously available at most other major institutions.

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