ICC statistics 2015—a bumper year

Yesterday, the ICC became the latest institution to publish its casework statistics for 2015.

A full version of the ICC Statistical Report for 2015 will be published in the next edition of the ICC Bulletin, but the ICC has revealed some high-level details, including:

• 801 new cases were filed last year—the second largest number in the institution's history. By way of comparison, the LCIA's Registrar's Report for 2015 noted that 326 arbitrations were referred last year
• The average value of the disputes referred to the ICC rose to US$84 million from US$63 million in 2014. The largest dispute was valued at over US$1 billion
• Construction and engineering disputes represented approx 25% of all cases received during the year
• Parties from the US remained the "most numerous", with significant rises reported in parties from, among others, China and the UAE. In 2015, the LCIA's most numerous parties were from the UK (naturally) and Russia

Following the LCIA's recent disclosure, the ICC has also released statistics on gender balance in its arbitrator appointments.

Whereas the LCIA reported that 15.8% of 2015 tribunal appointments were female, the ICC has stated that just over 10% of its 2015 appointees were female.

The ICC notes that statistics show that parties were less likely to select female arbitrators than the ICC Court. In this regard, the 2015 LCIA Registrar's also report revealed that of those female appointees, 77.5% were selected by the LCIA Court, 19.7% were selected by the parties, and 2.8% were selected by the parties’ nominees.

Alexis Mourre is quoted as follows:

 "The disclosure of gender statistics forms part of ICC's on-going strategy to enhance both the transparency and diversity of international arbitration. The Court remains committed to enhancing the diversity of ICC tribunals and we believe the publication of annual statistics has a key role to play in this regard."

The publication of these statistics is a welcome trend and it will be interesting to observe whether highlighting this issue has an impact on the number of parties appointing female arbitrators in subsequent years.

You can read more here.