By Ryan Pistorius (Weintraub Huang LLP), Malaika Pervez (DLA Piper), Hessam Mehrabi (Borden Ladner Gervais LLP), and Shadha Zawawi (Al Tamimi & Company)
Arbitration practice is constantly evolving, spurred by technological, economic, and political developments. The second day of CanArbWeek 2026 tackled this reality head-on, with panels on topics ranging from the historical foundations of Western Canadian arbitral institutions to mentorship dynamics, the relationship between in-house and outside counsel, and the economic currents shaping modern commercial disputes. The sentiment among participants was consistent: in an era of change, adaptability is the key to elevating not just individuals’ arbitration practices, but the whole Canadian arbitration system.
Playing by the Rules: Arbitration Challenges Amid Economic Sanctions
The first panel of the day was presented by the Toronto Commercial Arbitration Society (TCAS), entitled “Arbitration Challenges Amid Economic Sanctions”. It featured Robin Dodokin FCIArb, Geoff Moya, Alison FitzGerald, and London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) Director General Kevin Nash. Together, they unpacked how arbitrators, institutions, counsel, and funders navigate sanctions regimes in Canada, the United Kingdom, and beyond. The panel underscored that parties and counsel can no longer treat sanctions screening as a procedural formality or box-ticking exercise. It requires a substantive analysis to determine participant eligibility, available funding mechanisms, and whether proceedings may advance at all.
The Canadian legislative framework for sanctions, which prescribes criminal consequences for violations, applies not only to individuals and entities located in Canada but also to Canadian citizens and corporate entities conducting operations abroad. This extraterritorial scope raises immediate questions that can turn on the specific sanctions instrument involved. For example, whether a designated person can retain counsel depends on the applicable regulation and, in many cases, on obtaining the necessary permits. The panel grappled with issues of access to justice arising from the sanction regime, including the standards and procedures for designation, permitting, and enforcement.
One challenge lies in the threshold determination of whether one is transacting with a designated person. Practitioners may consult Canada’s Consolidated Autonomous Sanctions List or the United Nations Security Council’s consolidated register; however, these lists are constantly changing and are, in practice, systematically underinclusive. A salient example is an entity that is not listed would still be captured by the Canadian sanctions regime if it is beneficially owned by a designated person, which occurs if the designated person exercises “control” over the entity. Control, the panel elaborated, is not restricted to majority equity shareholding, but extends to any circumstances where a designated person de facto directs an entity’s activities.
Nash described the institutional perspective. The LCIA’s operational experience is largely process-driven; the mechanics of effecting financial transfers within a sanctions-constrained environment require familiarity with multiple and shifting practical thresholds under the applicable legislative framework. Institutions are positioned to provide valuable compliance support where the movement of funds or remittance of fees is constrained, alleviating some of the burden that parties and tribunals would otherwise bear.
For third-party funders, sanctions risk can be fatal to a potential funding relationship. Moya explained the two main ways that sanctions regimes hinder funding arrangements: first, a funder may be unable to deal with a sanctioned party altogether, as the ongoing disbursements inherent in the typical funding relationship become impossible; second, if a funded claim succeeds, the funder may be unable to collect its proceeds from a sanctioned counterparty. Faced with these dual risks, funders frequently elect to stay away entirely.
These threads converged in a spirited discussion of DRL v DRK, a decision of the High Court of Singapore. Two years after an arbitration commenced, the respondent was sanctioned by several states. It could not pay its legal fees or its share of the advances required by the institution to continue the arbitration, nor could it comply with a security-for-costs order. The tribunal issued an award terminating the proceedings on grounds of impossibility. The claimant then applied to the High Court to set aside the award for breach of natural justice, especially as the statute of limitations for its claim had expired by the time the tribunal terminated the arbitration. However, the Court dismissed the application. It held that there was no breach of natural justice because the tribunal was not exercising its procedural discretion in making the award, but rather making a factual finding about “impossibility”. Moreover, the Court observed, the Claimant had some twenty-nine months after the imposition of sanctions to find a third-party funder or assignee, or otherwise to implement some mechanism to progress the arbitration despite the sanctions. The panel agreed that whatever else one thinks of this outcome, DRL shows that parties must be proactive when dealing sanctions issues arise, and cannot simply let proceedings play out as normal.
The panel concluded on a note of strategic calibration. Parties may prefer ad hoc arbitration, since it afford greater procedural flexibility; but from an arbitrator’s perspective, an institutional setting will usually be preferred because established institutions will have established compliance mechanisms and formalized procedures. Echoing a theme heard throughout CanArbWeek, the overarching message was that there is no single correct approach to sanctions; the best approach depends on the facts, the forum, and time constraints. Sanctions compliance demands early and deliberate attention from all participants.
Home-Field Advantage: The Western Canada Story
The Vancouver International Arbitration Centre (VanIAC) panel commemorated VanIAC’s 40th anniversary. Moderator and VanIAC Secretary-General Romeo Rojas FCIArb, and panelists Gerald Ghikas KC, Joanne Luu FCIArb, and Yarden Gershony FCIArb traced VanIAC’s origins in the tongue-twisting “BCICAC”, its pivotal function as British Columbia’s default arbitral institution, and its continuing service as the province’s designated appointing authority for domestic arbitrations.
Conceived as part of Expo’86 to put Vancouver “on the map” for international arbitration, the British Columbia International Commercial Arbitration Centre (now VanIAC) has helped establish Vancouver as a reliable seat for international arbitrations. While ad hoc arbitration continues to dominate in the rest of Canada, institutional arbitration is adopted at much higher rates in British Columbia—largely thanks to the strength of VanIAC’s administration, its international roster of arbitrators and expertise in appointments, and its Arbitration Rules (which, the panel teased, are undergoing a major revision).
Comparing the arbitration landscapes in Alberta and British Columbia, the panelists observed that while Vancouver has emerged as a favoured seat for disputes involving parties in East Asia, Alberta has established itself as a preferred seat for energy sector disputes—even in instances where the parties have no other connection to Canada. These energy sector arbitrations are often governed by the LCIA Rules, with which Alberta arbitrators are especially familiar. If Western Canada continues to develop as an integrated arbitral hub, the VanIAC Rules may well become an equally attractive default for high-stakes energy arbitrations.
Passing the Ball Both Ways: Mutual Mentorship in Arbitration
In the Arbitral Women panel, “Mutual Mentorship: Learning from Each Other,” Joanne Luu FCIArb, Andrew Parley, Chloe Snider, Tara Singh, and Louise Barrington FCIArb explored how cross-generational learning can strengthen practice for mentees and mentors alike.
Against a backdrop of rapid change—AI-assisted research, digital evidence, hybrid hearings, and shifting client expectations—the discussion reframed the traditional “junior versus senior” narrative. Mutual mentorship, the panel posited, represents a strategic response to disruption rather than a simple hierarchy of experience.
The panel’s central theme was that professional learning flows in both directions. Senior practitioners can empower associates by cultivating meaningful opportunities, from leading on strategy to delivering opening submissions, while newer practitioners bring fluency with the digital tools reshaping practice and an openness to new procedures and techniques. The exchange works best when the rewards of youth and experience are treated as complementary rather than competing.
The panel also revisited the fundamentals of advocacy. The foundation invariably lies in command of the facts, signals to the arbitrators that counsel are thoroughly prepared and that they understand what the tribunal requires to reach a decision. What distinguishes good advocacy from great, the panel suggested, is the ability to answer both the “why” and the “how”—why the client should win within the governing legal framework, and how counsel can assist the arbitrators to arrive at the appropriate resolution.
Technology featured prominently throughout the discussion. The panelists advocated a measured approach: deploying artificial intelligence within one’s own comfort zone, whether for research, ideation, or managing documentary evidence. The tools can assist completing tasks that may otherwise be prohibitively time-consuming, such as reviewing voluminous documents or testing expert reports for strengths and weaknesses. But the panel was candid about the risks: even apparently low-stakes uses for AI, like making correspondence “punchier”, raise questions of tone that call for judgement, and the spectre of hallucinated authorities directly implicates counsel’s professional duty to the tribunal.
When asked which single skill they hoped to take from the other generation, the panelists captured the theme neatly: senior practitioners would welcome the confidence and adaptability that accompany comfort with evolving technology, while earlier-career practitioners coveted the writing skills of experienced counsel.
Bench Strength: Use of Expert Evidence to Maximum Effect
The Young Canadian Arbitration Practitioners (YCAP) hosted a panel featuring Ljiljana Stanić, Philippe Boisvert FCIArb, Julie Hopkins FCIArb, and Emma Huang, which posed the question: “What is Really Happening with Expert Evidence in Arbitration? (It’s Not All About Hot Tubbing).” Drawing upon counsel and arbitrator perspectives, the discussion offered nuanced insights and practical guidance for counsel seeking to strengthen their use of expert evidence.
The panel contrasted professional experts against those with “boots on the ground” experience, inviting counsel to consider whether their clients’ interests are always best served by the marquee experts who testify frequently in disputes, or whether less-experienced can compensate for their relative lack of reputational capital with better cost, availability, and responsiveness and lower risk of conflicts with arbitrators. Counsel should weigh these considerations from the outset and select accordingly. As noted at the YCAP / CIArb YMG / LCIA YIAG reception that followed the day’s panels, an added bonus of selecting a less-known expert is that it helps develop future marquee experts, expanding and diversifying the pool for cases that demand a recognizable name.
With respect to expert preparation, the panel suggested “more, not less” when providing documents for review. While some counsel prefer to constrain their expert and rely upon counsel-provided “assumptions”, the panel cautioned that this is a dangerous game. If, for example, an expert is confronted at a hearing with fact evidence that alters their calculations or undermines a foundational assumption, they face two choices, both of which are bad: reject its import (and risk undermining their credibility) or revise their findings (and risk undermining the case of the party that retained them, and which may in any event be impossible depending on the stage of the proceedings). Either way, a prepared expert is a stronger expert.
The panel underscored that an expert’s credibility rises and falls on their independence and impartiality. Counsel must be vigilant to maintain the expert’s distinct voice; it is ultimately self-defeating when experts slide into the role of co-counsel and actively advocate for their appointing party. Similarly, when preparing expert reports, counsel should exercise restraint not to substitute their own words for the expert’s. An expert will only perform a credible, persuasive part in advancing the party’s case if they can speak in their own voice.
The panel concluded with Julie Hopkins’s light-hearted yet highly practical tips¬ from the arbitrator point of view, such as imploring attendees to stop putting long expert CVs at the beginning of their reports.
Reading the Play: In-House Strategy in Arbitration and Settlement
For in-house counsel, arbitration strategy begins long before a notice of arbitration is served. At the CPR Canada panel, “Inside the Corporate Playbook: In-House Strategy in Arbitration and Settlement,” Iris Antonios FCIArb, Omar Madhany, Bruce Karn, and the CPR Institute’s Knar A. Nahikian discussed how corporate clients approach disputes as business risks requiring strategic management, and not as isolated and purely legal events. The conversation afforded a window into corporate decision-making processes and served as a reminder that how a dispute is framed internally, within the party, often shapes everything that follows.
A recurring theme was that in-house teams invest significant time, well before external counsel are retained, in defining what “success” looks like for each dispute. Only once the preferred business goal is identified can dialogue with external counsel can begin in earnest. Thereafter, each subsequent decision, from retaining experts to shaping settlement strategy, should be tested based on whether it brings the party closer to that goal. In particular, external counsel should not fall into the familiar trap of thinking that legal outcomes are goals in themselves; they are beneficial on when, and to the extent that, they advance business goals. The panel cautioned that this goal is not always singular or static. As leadership priorities and commercial environments evolve over the lifecycle of a dispute, the definition of success may evolve as well. Both in-house and external counsel should be alive to changing circumstances to ensure they continue working toward the common goal.
Predictability emerged as a central reason companies favour arbitration. The panel unpacked this concept into three aspects: predictability of timeline, predictability of cost, and predictability of outcome. Cost, the speakers observed, represents only one component of the equation; the time over which those costs are spent can matter just as much. For example, a significant outlay concentrated within a single fiscal year is a different proposition from the same amount stretched across several years, particularly for businesses engaged in revenue forecasting, audit planning, and market condition assessment. The ability to anticipate not merely the magnitude of a dispute’s costs, but also the timing of those costs, allows in-house teams to align the process with the commercial rhythms of the organization.
Gathering these threads together, the panel underscored that for corporate clients, dispute resolution performs a business function, and only secondarily a legal one. The most effective engagements are those in which external counsel understand the commercial objective from the outset, calibrate strategy to advance it, and understand that predictability—of timeline, cost, and outcome—is often what businesses value most.
Full Time: Adaptation as Arbitration’s Competitive Advantage
Two overarching themes emerged from the second day of CanArbWeek 2026. First, arbitration is increasingly shaped by forces that transcend procedure and legal doctrine. Economic sanctions, technological evolution, shifting client expectations, and broader commercial conditions are influencing how disputes are managed and resolved. Effective arbitration now demands legal expertise combined with strategic, commercial, and technological awareness.
Second, many traditional roles within arbitration are undergoing corresponding transformations. Institutions are taking on expanded compliance functions; in-house counsel are driving dispute strategy through a focus on business objectives; experts are facing heightened scrutiny regarding their independence; and mentorship is evolving into a reciprocal exchange of experience and innovation. Across the day’s discussions, adaptability emerged as a defining feature of effective arbitral practice.
While Day 1 emphasized Canada’s opportunity to strengthen its international profile, Day 2 highlighted the qualities that will allow the Canadian arbitration community to seize that opportunity. The discussions reflected a profession that is collaborative, pragmatic, and responsive to change. In a rapidly evolving dispute resolution landscape, Canada’s greatest strength may lie not only in its institutions and practitioners, but in its willingness to learn, adapt, and advance the field.