International Arbitration and Third Party Funding in Hong Kong: Q&A with the Secretary-General of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre

As jurisdictions compete for status as premier international arbitration hubs, a differentiating factor (or, increasingly, a must-have factor) is whether the jurisdiction’s legal framework allows for third party funding in arbitrations seated there. We have followed the development towards a more permissive environment for third party funding in Asia closely, recently asking members of Freshfields’ international arbitration group to provide an update on developments in Asia with Singapore and Hong Kong leading the charge. Today, we focus in on Hong Kong, which on February 1, 2019, put into effect previously enacted legislative changes to permit third party funding in international arbitration. In connection with this development, the Ministry of Justice has released the Code of Practice for Third Party Funding of Arbitration, which sets out practices and standards with which third party funders are expected to comply in connection with funding of arbitrations in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (“HKIAC”) amended its rules to harmonize with the legislative changes and to address disclosure requirements, confidentiality, and costs in third party funded matters. We asked Sarah Grimmer, Secretary-General of HKIAC to discuss the changing landscape.