Confidentiality and the Riddick Principle in International Commercial Arbitration

This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive review of the international rules of law on the obligations of confidentiality and its exceptions in international commercial arbitration, including the Riddick principle stemming from the common law jurisdiction. To this end, this article examines and analyzes developed countries’ arbitration legislation including relevant case laws and the most recent leading institutional rules. Given the fact that the increasing use of discovery in international commercial arbitration and that the parties and practitioners in civil law countries are not familiar with the concept of the Riddick principle and its implied undertaking to a court, this article introduces the concept of the Riddick principle with some analysis for the recent case laws. Finally, this paper makes some suggestions to strengthen the compliance of confidentiality in international commercial arbitration by introducing new rules on confidentiality, inter alia, sanctions for breaching of the obligations of confidentiality.