In international commercial arbitration, there is a complex relationship between confidentiality and transparency. Confidentiality represents one of the trademarks of international commercial arbitration. Since it allows for an effective and unbiased dispute resolution, it represents one of the important reasons why parties decide for arbitration. In addition, we could claim that contemporary trends demand the ever-greater transparency and openness. The increasingly visible transparency trend endeavours to ensure greater reliability, predictability and comprehensibility of the arbitration procedure, which explains its placement amongst the values of the international commercial arbitration.
Transparency is one of the running topics in the international commercial arbitration and is often discussed not only in the circle of arbitration experts, but also amongst the wider public. The purpose of the master’s thesis is not to present transparency and confidentiality as mutually excluding institutes, but to find the right balance between the seemingly opposing phenomena in order to cater for the needs of the current economy and preserve the trust of the parties involved in arbitration. The key question, which I will attempt to answer in this thesis, is: should we change the international commercial arbitration in order to increase transparency, whilst simultaneously preserving the privacy and confidentiality as its fundamental characteristics?
In seeking an answer to this question, I present the definitions of confidentiality and transparency as important values of the international commercial arbitration, provide an analysis of comparative legal arrangements of confidentiality in different national legal systems and present the concept of transparency as a means for development of the international commercial arbitration. Based on the critical analysis of the applicable arrangement and an evaluation of the existing endeavours in the arbitration community, I conclude the master’s thesis with the finding that the existing system of the international commercial arbitration already includes a considerable amount of transparency. What is more, transparency and confidentiality do not act as necessarily opposing institutes, since they can co-exist in the system of the international commercial arbitration.
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