The UK Arbitration Act 2025: A Quiet Statute with Loud Consequences — Including for Dhaka
London remains one of the world’s leading arbitral seats, and the Arbitration Act 1996 has served for nearly three decades as a model studied across the Commonwealth — including in the thinking behind Bangladesh’s Arbitration Act 2001. When England reforms its arbitration law, the ripples travel.
The Arbitration Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in February 2025 following a Law Commission review, is that reform: evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but consequential at every point it touches.
Five changes to know
41. Governing law of the arbitration agreement. The Act introduces a default rule that the arbitration agreement is governed by the law of the seat unless the parties expressly agree otherwise — replacing the intricate common-law approach in Enka v Chubb and restoring drafting certainty.
42. Arbitrator disclosure. Building on Halliburton v Chubb, arbitrators now owe a statutory duty to disclose circumstances that might reasonably give rise to justifiable doubts as to impartiality.
43. Summary disposal. Tribunals receive an express power to dispose of claims or issues that have no real prospect of success — arbitration’s answer to summary judgment.
44. Strengthened arbitrator immunity. Arbitrators are better protected against liability for resignation and the costs of removal applications, supporting robust decision-making.
45. Emergency arbitrators and jurisdiction challenges. The Act clarifies enforcement in respect of emergency arbitrators and streamlines court challenges to awards on jurisdiction, discouraging full re-hearings of points already argued.
The lesson for Bangladesh
The Arbitration Act 2001 is now a quarter-century old, and practitioners have long catalogued its friction points — from court intervention to enforcement delays. The English reform offers a tested menu: certainty on governing law, codified disclosure duties, and summary powers that answer the commonest complaint against arbitration, its cost and length. For Bangladeshi lawyers drafting London-seated clauses, the 2025 Act is now essential reading; for Bangladeshi law reformers, it is something better — a working precedent. A full comparative article will follow in our Legal Writing section.