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Professor Rogers to discuss third-party funding in international arbitration at ABA event


UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State Law professor Catherine Rogers is participating in an American Bar Association discussion on Wednesday entitled “Third Party Funding In International Arbitration: Issues and Challenges.”

Organized by the ABA’s International Arbitration Committee, the program will consist of a role play set in a case study in which experts in the field will present a mock application for funding of an international arbitration, highlighting the key practical, legal, and ethical issues raised by third-party funding.

Third-party funders are playing an increasingly larger role in international arbitration, with more and more institutions financing disputes in return for a portion of the proceeds from a successful case. The financing is coming from insurance companies, investment banks, and hedge funds as well as specialized institutions that focus solely on investing in arbitral disputes. The stakes are high. Funders cumulatively have many billions of dollars that they are ready to spend on legal services to pursue claims around the world, and increasingly international arbitration disputes are drawing some of that funding.

Joining Rogers in the discussion are Susan Dunn of Harbour Litigation Funding Ltd, Martina Polasek of International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, and Peter Rees, QC, of Thirty Nine Essex Street Chambers.

The talk takes place at 9 a.m. on April 29 at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Rogers is co-chair, along with William “Rusty” Park, president of the London Court of International Arbitration, of the Task Force on Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration, which is convened by the International Council for Commercial Arbitration in collaboration with Queen Mary College at the University of London.

A scholar of international arbitration and professional ethics, Rogers is a reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law, the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration, one of the ICC Palestine’s delegated members of the Court of Arbitration for the new Jerusalem Arbitration Centre, and a member of the board of directors of the International Judicial Academy. She is also working to found Arbitrator Intelligence, an interactive informational network to increase equal access to information and increase accountability in the arbitrator selection process. Her latest book, Ethics in International Arbitration, is the first monograph to systematically analyze the existing ambiguities and conflicting rules that apply to the conduct of arbitrators, counsel, expert witnesses, and third-party funders in international arbitration.

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