Leading the Future of International Arbitration at the LCIA with Kevin Nash

Episode 52: Kevin Nash - Leading the Future of International Arbitration at the LCIA

In this must-listen episode of The Legal Genie Podcast, your host Lara Quie sits down with Kevin Nash, the Director General of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) and a globally recognized leader in the field. With a career spanning Canada, Sweden, Singapore, and now London, Kevin shares his remarkable journey from his roots in Calgary to the helm of one of the world’s most prestigious arbitral institutions.

Listeners will gain rare insights into:

Building a Global Arbitration Career: Kevin’s unconventional path, including his transformative experiences at Mount Allison University, Stockholm University, and his meteoric rise at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC).

Institutional Innovation: How Kevin’s leadership at SIAC created a “mini United Nations” of elite counsel and why institutional experience is a game-changer for young arbitration practitioners.

The LCIA’s Next Chapter: Kevin’s vision for the LCIA, blending 130 years of tradition with a forward-thinking, entrepreneurial spirit inspired by Asian arbitral institutions.

Hot Topics in Arbitration: The future of AI in dispute resolution, the importance of cybersecurity and confidentiality, and the evolving role of arbitral institutions in a rapidly changing legal landscape.

Practical Advice: Why working at an arbitral institution can be a pivotal step in a legal career, and Kevin’s open-door approach to mentoring the next generation of arbitration professionals.

Packed with candid stories, actionable insights, and a touch of humour, this episode is essential listening for anyone interested in the future of international arbitration, institutional leadership, and the global legal profession.

Tune in to discover how Kevin Nash is shaping the next era of arbitration—and why London remains a powerhouse in the world of dispute resolution.

Lara Q Associates
A boutique business and executive coaching consultancy

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Transcript

Lara Quie: Hello and welcome to episode 52 of the Legal Genie Podcast with me your host, Lara Quie, and today I'm delighted to be in conversation with Kevin Nash, the Director General of the London Court of International Arbitration, also known as the LCIA.

In this role, he oversees the administration of international commercial disputes and helps maintain London's position as a premier arbitration seat. Kevin moved to London after a long and distinguished tenure The Registrar at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, where he grew to prominence as a global leader in international arbitration services.

Welcome to the show, Kevin. It's great to have you here. 

Kevin Nash: Thanks, Lara. Great to be here. And I think it's, so it's episode 52, but I think we've been talking about this since about episode five, or 10. 

Lara Quie: It is true. You did have to beg to be on the show. No, I'm absolutely delighted that we managed to make it happen.

Your diary is crazy. You travel all over the world. It has been very challenging, but I'm super glad that we are here at last. So, let's talk about your background and your family and where you grew up. 

Kevin Nash: Ah, you, you know, I always struggle with the non arbitration questions. I can remember doing a, a webinar during COVID and, and they, and they said that there was gonna be a warmup question but they didn't tell us what the warmup question was going to be.

And then they asked, "what was the last non arbitration book that you've read?" And I think that there's some grainy video of me somewhere for 10 seconds not being able to conjure what the last non-arbitration book I, I read was 'cause I tend to be focusing a lot on arbitration. So my background, I I grew up in Calgary, Canada.

So I, I feel like I've started to identify as a western Canadian. 'cause I, I think there's a lot of, or, so you have people from Eastern Canada, a lot of of whom have been overseas. So I take quite a bit of pride in being from Western Canada. I had a really a really idyllic childhood. It was great growing up in Calgary. I have an older brother. I now have a growing niece and nephew that are getting incredibly tall. And my brother's a lawyer as well. He's a litigator in Calgary. He has his own firm. And then I've got a great mom and dad and all of them are coming to London for the Christmas holidays.

So I'm already preparing my flat here to, welcome all of my family for Christmas. So I'm really looking forward to that. 

Lara Quie: That does sound amazing. I think my experience of Calgary is only like the Winter Olympics back in the day. It really put Calgary on the map,

Kevin Nash: yeah. I always remind everyone that we, we have the Olympics. Yes.

Lara Quie: Yes, you did. And it was fantastic. So you must have done a lot of ice hockey and skiing and things like that. 

Kevin Nash: I did. We, I was out with a few arbitration people last night and I was saying that I can never remember learning how to skate or not knowing how to skate because I effectively, as soon as I could walk, I could skate.

So I played hockey all my life. I was a competitive athlete growing up. And then the skiing I, I've, I haven't skied in a while, but I learned it is something that you never forget. 'cause I went last year and I hadn't been for about a decade sadly, but there's great skiing in Western Canada, the Rocky Mountains, Banff, Lake Louise. So yeah, I did that all the time growing up. 

Lara Quie: I'm very jealous. I learned to ski from the age of two. So I'm a big skier. I do love it. And I actually also played ice hockey at Oxford University. Really? Not for the university team. Exactly. 'cause I didn't, I didn't do that well. But I do know what it's like to skate about.

So that's quite fun. Yeah. So, thinking about your university time, I know that you went to Mount Allison University and then you went to law school, and you said your brother is also a lawyer, so is there any sort of family history, any connection to the law? 

Kevin Nash: Not at all. I think when you grew up in Calgary, if you do not go into the oil business, it seems odd.

So my dad is a geologist and many of our close friends all work in the oil business. So no history of going into the law. And I think my brother and I arrived at it in independently but it's it's interesting now because we are able to sort of because he's in court almost every day, and I work for an institution, it's, it's interesting to get his view from being on, on his feet as opposed to sitting down in arbitration.

He does a, a smattering of arbitration, but mostly pure Liddy. So yeah, it's fun. And he is my older brother. So having him sort of as a guide to be able to ask general principles and questions too. It's great. 

Lara Quie: Yeah, that sounds fantastic, especially as you say, you know, an older brother to tease out those difficult challenges that must be really lovely.

So thinking about law school and then your very early career, how did you get into the international arbitration world? 

Kevin Nash: So, in international arbitration in Canada, I think is a bit of a tricky business 'cause there's not a, a commercial arbitration, or it's not robust the way that it is in London. London is, is the Centre of the universe when it comes to arbitration and dispute resolution. So Canada produces a very high amount proportionally of very eminent arbitrators, but it's more commercial litigation than international arbitration practice in, in Canada.

So to a certain degree, you become that person at the law firm as the guy that does arbitration. Oh yeah. Doesn't that guy, he likes arbitration. He, he does arbitration, which might be a relatively small file. So it was something that I knew that I, I liked all the way up. I knew that I liked it in law school, I can actually remember, and I, I won't, I won't name her because she's a very prominent member of the profession.

So one of my close friends from undergrad, his sister is a prominent arbitration lawyer. And I can remember being fascinated 'cause I didn't understand how law worked at the time. But she was a Canadian that was overseas. And I was saying to my friend, "but how does she go to court overseas? Don't you have to be like qualified in that jurisdiction?" And then my friend was like, "No, no, she does international arbitration."

And, and so that was almost sort of the first introduction. And then of course like I, like a lot of students in law school, you try to take all of the ADR classes and, and so I just continued to get more and more interested still, so still doing more litigation, but I sort of had that drive to want to go to arbitration. But like a lot of Canadians, you have a sense that you will have to go overseas to, to build your career. So then I left my law firm in Toronto and then did my LLM in international commercial arbitration in Stockholm, which really provided the platform for me to then go on to Singapore and eventually go on to London.

Lara Quie: So tell us a bit about your time in Sweden. You must have really enjoyed that time. Swedes are, you know, great, fun loving people and they've got a lot of great cultural traditions. So what was that like? 

Kevin Nash: I love Sweden so much. Stockholm is one of my favorite places in the world.

And, and now when I'm advising students, or early practitioners, they will ask me if they should take an LLM. So I've been in practice for four years. I'm thinking about taking an LLM or I've just finished my law degree. What do you think about an LLM? And what I always say is that don't worry about how much it's going to impact or influence your career.

It will be the greatest year of your life, the opportunity to be around lawyers from all different jurisdictions. You have that fusion of the common law and civil law. So I give an enormous amount of credit to my LLM, my LLM professor at the time, Patricia Shaughnessy I think she self describes as my arbitration mom.

I would also describe her as my arbitration mom. Of course, I have to share her with about 2000 graduates of the I Cal program in Stockholm. But it was, I think learning the, the love of arbitration there, understanding the rigor of arbitration and the students from that program have, have been uniquely successful.

In arbitration practice and at institution. So I was doing some in Canada, but for me that was really where arbitration seriously commenced. 

Lara Quie: And it sounds like that was like the beginning of the truly international experience. So obviously we met in Singapore. Yeah. Tell me a bit about your journey to Singapore.

I mean from, Canada, Stockholm, Singapore, that's sort of an unusual path. 

Kevin Nash: Yeah, just my, my slow progression to the East. We start out in Canada, then we go to Stockholm and then to Singapore. It was, it was quite daunting for me to go to Singapore.

I'll be honest, I sometimes make the joke that I effectively had like a handkerchief and and a stick and just a few personal items in Singapore, and that's what I showed up in Singapore with. And then you walk out of Changi airport and you hit that wall of humidity. So I went there not knowing anyone and then you just showing up your first day at work.

And it was, it was interesting for me as well, because I wasn't sure about going to an institution because I'd been interviewing with law firms as well, curiously, with law firms in London. So my career could have went completely differently. Maybe I would've been moving to Singapore now. But I always think that I was incredibly lucky and a lot of arbitration is about timing. It's a really difficult field to get into, and it's almost like you need to be fortunate with your timing, but then you need to take advantage of that opportunity. If you're lucky enough to take, to get the opportunity, you have to take advantage of it.

So. Because I arrived in 2012 or late 2011, early 2012 in Singapore and Singapore then hosted ICCA that summer. And it was really when Singapore was starting to ascend in a very significant way. So for me to have arrived at that exact same time when Singapore was ascending, when SIAC was really starting to become a global institution rather than a, a regional player.

So I was, I was really lucky. And it's a funny thing because I always thought that I would go to an institution for a year or two and then, and then go back to a law firm. And then I managed to stay for 13 years. And apparently, I'm gonna be staying for even more. But I also like it because the institutional work that happens, I'm a huge advocate of how precise and tricky this work at institutions can be.

 And I think that institutional representatives are really starting to show their talent and they belong at sort of the, the top tables in the world. And I like the fact that you can make a career out of it. Like I look at some of my professional colleagues from, from the PCA that these are really influential significant people and they're people that have stayed at institutions as well.

Kevin Nash: And I think that's part of the reason why PCA is such a good institution because you have that continuity and it's the same at LCIA as well. When I, when I first started wandering around the office and I heard that our, say our deputy registrar has been at LCIA for 15 years. I thought no one had been at an institution longer than me for 13 years.

And our head of events has been at LCIA for 25 years. And if you can have that kind of domain knowledge and that kind of continuity, that's when I think you can start being pretty special with case management. 

Lara Quie: Definitely. And as you say, you know, Singapore, the timing was just absolutely incredible- the Singapore government was a hundred percent behind growing Singapore as a legal hub for Southeast Asia. So. It was really an interesting time, but I know that you yourself had a meteoric rise within it, but you really put together an incredibly international team. I was so impressed with the young people that you had as counsel, and you always used to say it was your mini United Nations, but the talent and the variety of backgrounds that they had because of it was reflecting the caseload that you had. So tell me a bit about what went on and your strategy at the time. 

Kevin Nash: Well, I mean the the counsel team in the SIAC secretariat, that is ultimately my Singapore legacy.

I think that I hired everyone in that existing team, and I spent an enormous amount of time on it and it sort of time you wondered as you were doing it whether this was going to be well spent. 'cause I did hundreds of interviews and I, I mean that SIAC team is elite. They are diverse. They are great people and I think that they are very complimentary.

So, and to go from say, or a situation where not only did the team grow, but just keeping that balance of civil law and common law. The last hire before I left was a counsel from Nigeria. So now, because you have. You have some of those economic corridors that are very important to Singapore.

So the China - Africa corridor, and then being able to have a counsel that will speak to those users and having counsel from Latin America all around the ASEAN. It was a really fun team to put together. I did have to modify my practice to a certain degree, so there are some legends out there in the community about how difficult the written test at SIAC was and sure enough, it was difficult. BaSIACally what I used to do is every time I was having a bad day in arbitration, I would make the test even more difficult. I'm not even sure if some of the questions were answerable or I just wanted to see how applicants would answer. And eventually eventually I had to change the written test to a 24 hour test because there was one former counsel at SIAC who's now going on to great prominence in practice, who submitted a 37 page answer to the written test. And he later confessed once we hired him, that he had spent more time on the SIAC written test than he had on his LLM thesis. It was one of the greatest pieces of work that I'd ever seen, but I had to save people like him from themselves, and I had needed to make it time, time bound and have a 24 hour cap on that written test.

So I spend a lot of time on it. Really thought about how all the pieces fit together. And then after that, I then divided the secretariat up into teams. So when I left, we had it at five teams, because you really want to think about succession as well. So we have all these amazingly talented lawyers in the SIAC secretariat, but getting to see them lead.

So that they were running their own team, rather than having everything sort of funnel up to me as sort of the point on a very large triangle to have a lot of team-based work, which I think really helped our efficiency and then train those counsel effectively to be future registrars. 

Lara Quie: Absolutely. And it's such an important stepping stone as well to, a career back in private practice or in-house as well. So would you recommend that as an important piece? You know, would you say to young lawyers, " if you could get a position as a counsel, this would be a really great thing to do."

Kevin Nash: Yeah, absolutely. And cause I think that we have to look at careers in arbitration as it could be a 40 or 50 year career, and it is really all about evolving as a practitioner. And if you want to be procedurally perfect, you go to an institution, there is nowhere else where you can get that kind of a library of procedural experience. So if you can add that on to some proper counsel work and spend a period of time at an institution, I think it is absolutely great for your career. I think what's fun about working for an institution now is that the institutional representatives really are, are thought of as leaders in arbitration.

They become very well known, known as as safe pairs of of hands. So I think it's great for institutions and it is yeah, it's a really good experience. If you're, again, if you're looking at having a, a very long career in arbitration because I, I, I will often say, again to students or young practitioners that any opportunity you can find a way to make it work in your arbitration career.

So if you went in-house for a few years, that is going to be an advantage. You could work for an arbitrator, you could work for an academic because it is to that ultimate goal of being a fully well-rounded arbitration practitioner. And working at an institution can be a key piece to that. 

Lara Quie: I've definitely witnessed that, you know, I've seen the talent that comes through the SIAC and all these institutions and how the insights it must give the exposure to reading awards and the international atmosphere and everything. So I've always thought that that's a really great step in one's career.

Kevin Nash: Lara, so if I, if I could, I'm just gonna say second what, what you said. Because I think that a lot of people that haven't worked at an institution, I really don't think they understand the level of complexity of some of these procedural decisions.

I, I was talking with someone the other day about whether or not there's res judicata in, in terms of procedural applications. And I, and I was, I was reminded of a situation where it was a string of 10 cases and the applicant for consolidation kept slightly amending their application. So they would fail to consolidate all 10, and then they would say, "well, I want to consolidate cases number one, four, and seven."

How do you deal with that as a, as an institution? How do you deal with issues of, of standing, if you had a non-signatory that was moving a notice of arbitration? You have all of these things going on in the background that are really chunky things, and the hope is for, for the users and for the external counsel and for the arbitrators, that everything seems really easy.

Even if it's not, it's a bit like a, like a duck paddling in the water. So, so the duck on top of the water, everything looks smooth, but underneath the feet are, are paddling furiously. And I think that's what it's like working at an institution is that there's all of this work going on. So that really, it is a smooth functioning arbitration to the arbitrators, the users and the counsel.

Lara Quie: Well, certainly the image projected externally was one of exceedingly high professionalism. And I could tell you with that duck or swan, let's say, opposed, I think there was a lot of, 

Kevin Nash: There was a lot of furious paddling.

Lara Quie: There was a lot of hard work going on. I know that you really burnt the midnight oil, you worked so hard and your energy was ridiculous. I, I hope you've established a bit more work life balance.

Kevin Nash: No, no promises.

Lara Quie: Yeah. No. So let's talk about, your move to London. You were appointed Director General, which you started this year just the 1st of January, 2025. So, we're sort of nine months in. What can you tell us about the role so far? 

Kevin Nash: You know, everything has been better than than expected. And what I've really been struck at is ' cause sometimes there's sort of this division or almost an artificial bifurcation of institutions that are classified either as structured administration or light touch administration.

So. SIAC and ICC are thought to be more structured administration LCIA, say HKIAC, a bit more light touch, so I'm going all around the world. I repeat it again and again that I call it flexible administration because it's not really light touch at all. So say LCIA doesn't have a scrutiny process. And before I came to LCIA was assuming that awards were just being transmitted without anyone looking at them.

That is, that is not the case at all. We've got the counsel, deputy Registrar, Registrar, me. We're all looking at awards. I think the difference is, is that you don't have a rigid formal scrutiny process, but there still is that dialogue with the tribunal. So I've found it very interesting how the pain points some of the strengths and weaknesses of the institution seem very similar.

So it's actually made the transition quite easy for me because it's not that much different than the role that I was performing at SIAC. And I also think that I'm in a, in a very fortunate position, 'cause LCIA was already one of the most preferred institutions in the world and it was a very well run institution.

So effectively there's 130 years of history that is already working and it was working without me. So I become just like the flourish on LCIA, the hope hopefully can take it to the next level. But it was already fine. Without me. So that is a very privileged position to be coming to an institution where there is an enormous amount of experience. 

And I just get to come in and, and try to add to that. 

Lara Quie: When I saw your appointment, I thought, my goodness, this is a master stroke. Because I did feel that with the, Singapore government's support of the SIAC, I did feel like it's very important that London doesn't rest on its laurels, right?

Because although it had been, preeminent and of course such a long history and especially with English law as the background, it's an unnatural advantage. But with the SIAC and others coming from behind and really catching up and that intense innovation, efficiency, internationalization.

I felt okay, they've recognized actually that there's stuff going on there. We need to get hold of that, and that's why they brought you in. So what key initiatives have you brought since you started as Director General? 

Kevin Nash: So I think it, it, it's almost sort of the, the themes and the ethos of what the institution is going to be.

And it's much like you said, I think I do bring a bit of the, of the Asian sensibility to it. 'cause what you notice about the Asian institutions and I think Asian culture in general is that there is a very entrepreneurial spirit to it that we are going to go above and beyond. I can remember when we used to have emergency arbitrations at SIAC, that we would physically take the papers to the emergency arbitrator's house.

We would stay up till four in the morning to be able to answer all queries on the content, and we wanted everyone to think that we were running around the clock. And then when you added in, say, our overseas offices having Adriana Usan in in New York, we really were running around the clock. So I think that that being a bit more entrepreneurial and really trying to get out there, I think that was important.

I think that London has been a preeminent seat of arbitration and LCIA has been a preeminent institution for so long that I think that maybe there was a bit of a sensibility that all the cases are going to come to us. And that's true to a certain degree. I mean it is. It is unbelievably global, like parties from 161 jurisdictions, all different seats and governing laws.

But I think that you still have to go out and get the work and get a bit more into not just, I think pitching for work, which is a bit of an odd thing to do as an institution, but really being out there for the betterment of arbitration. I think one thing that we did very well in Singapore is that we weren't going to get cases, we were going to build up jurisdictions, like we are going to build up the local practitioners, the arbitrators, engaging in training. So we're doing a lot more of that, a lot more outreach and then also wanting to be quite accessible. I have always found that Monday morning on my text messages is one of the worst times of the week because everyone will be texting me.

They want to know about their cases, but I think that this is important that you need to be able to have that conduit to the institution. We can't engage in ex parte conversations, but we need to be able to be accessible to the users for arbitration in 2025. In the same way if a counsel or an arbitrator has a hearing, we want them to be able to pop over to the LCIA office.

 So I think that that overall spirit, I think is, is what we've, or what I've tried to bring in bring into play. But then of course there are some, some more chunky updates that are going to be going to be coming soon. I've been leaking publicly and quite intentionally the prospect of an LCIA rules revision.

Kevin Nash: So the last update was in, in 2020, and then some considerations of whether LCIA ought to open up a bricks and mortar presence. So do we want to have offices overseas? And then I suppose the arbitration chestnut that everyone is dealing with is how are institutions going to be implementing ai?

So does this need to be hardwired into the rules? Should we be issuing guidance? Is the guidance saying anything that moves the needle? And then how can we integrate AI to make the case management process better? I am very fortunate that we have Maxie Sheerer as the President of the LCIA court.

So. Every time I think I'm a little bit out of my depth in AI, I can just ask Maxie because she's one of the leading voices in the field on AI. So Maxie and I have been huddling a lot. I was actually just in Paris yesterday taking some meetings with Maxie and every time we're meeting, we're talking about the various vendors and potential solutions.

But that's something that LCIA needs to get in front of. And I actually, I really like the combination of having this 130 years of LCIA history with also being very tech forward and at the front of the curve on technology. I think that is a pretty compelling combination. 

Lara Quie: It is and I'm glad you're the one that mentioned AI before I did.

It is in every single conversation. But one thing that I'm thinking about is, you mentioned all the outreach and certainly in your role as Registrar previously you went overseas tirelessly, and a lot of it was around the education of corporate counsel because those are actually the people who are, you know, writing the clauses.

And so I'm thinking about AI and the fact that people are going to be putting into all of these large language models "write me the ideal arbitration clause". So how are you going to get yourself, you're gonna have to program in some way for the LCIA's model arbitration clause to come up as the first option. What are you doing about that? 

Kevin Nash: So, yeah, so that, that one's quite interesting. The AAA ICDR has, has a clause builder but sometimes I wonder maybe if that might be sort of over legislating something that is not terribly difficult to do. And when you're someone like me that I think that has administered a library of maybe, maybe 7,000 international cases at this point, and you see all the wild and magical ways that arbitration clauses can go wrong, I'm not sure if we should be injecting a further complication into, into the procedure 'cause.

Sometimes when I'm lecturing on drafting arbitration clauses, I, I will use an example to make an example effectively to absurdity saying that you could have a valid arbitration clause with just three words. You would never recommend that anyone draft it this way. But technically if you put arbitration period, London period, LCIA, period, that would probably work.

The arbitration- maybe that's a mandatory reference to arbitration. London. Does that imply LCIA implies administration. You could get it there and particularly for other jurisdictions where there is not clarity on the governing law of the arbitration agreement. I think that we would want to be very careful about a clause, builder.

You would want that to be perfect. So I, I am somewhat cautious about that, but of course recognizing that this is coming, like it is coming if not already arrived. So we've gotta make sure, as you say, that LCIA is sort of at the top of that LLM. 

Lara Quie: Exactly. 'cause I can just imagine competing different arbitral institutions making sure, because these LLMs are often quite biased.

So you have to be careful. It If the SIAC are just, bombarding the internet with their model clauses, and of course we've seen the adoption of their clause is very, very successful, particularly in India. So yeah, you'll have to think about how to compete in that space.

But I think just like with online shops and all of these different brands, they need to think about these LLMs and how people are moving off Google into ChatGPT And we are seeing more and more lawyers leveraging AI to do all sorts of things. So, especially imagining corporate lawyers, and like the disputes clause, et cetera, isn't something that they usually really, really focus on. It's often sort of an afterthought. It goes right at the end of the contract. So there is a danger that they may turn, especially, you know, smaller law firms in all sorts of countries all over the world into ChatGPT. Why should they choose LCIA? 

Kevin Nash: You know, I'm, somewhat diplomatic when it comes to this, that it is horses for courses. And when I was meeting with a room full of GCs yesterday and, and I was talking about it's really trying to get all of the best things that you can in dispute resolution clause, and even by virtue of your contract. The reason why you might wanna choose LCIA is because LCIA is popular enough that you may get what you want on seat and the governing law of the contract, and that may be important to you. So if you want to have a Paris seat a seat in, in Rio, and the counterparty is a jurisdiction where they're very comfortable with LCIA.

I think that's one of the reasons why you pick LCIA, but it could be any of the other sort of white shoe institutions. I think the, the second reason why you choose LCIA is for high value disputes. I think that we will have the hourly versus a valorem debate as long as we are involved in arbitration and it's always going to be 50% in one half of the other.

I think what is abundantly clear. Is once you start to get above, say, a hundred million dollars, and certainly for the multi-billion dollar disputes, the hourly system is going to tend to be more cost effective than ad valorem. I think LCIA also has a perception advantage because it occurred to me, and we're starting to include this in our marketing message, that LCIA really of the major institutions is the most fiercely independent institution that we have in all of arbitration.

So it's not under the auspices of a chambers. Or a government, LCIA is beholden to no one. So if I wanna decide our strategy in a jurisdiction, maybe where sanctions are at play our outreach strategy, I am talking to the board. But we are ultimately deciding that strategy and we're deciding it for the good of arbitration and for the good of LCIA as an institution.

So I think that independence and the understanding of the independence of LCIA, I think that that is, that is attractive for parties. And then maybe finally it is the, the flexibility and the experience of LCIA. I think there's a lot of very good new institutions, but as a user, I would always be a little bit slow to use an institution that is still figuring out procedure or maybe hasn't seen situations a number of times. You don't want an institution to be encountering a thorny issue for the first time. You want an institution that has this library of experience that has dealt with all different kinds of cases. And I think the flexibility that is imbued into LCIA I think is really helpful.

There's not sort of very rigid SOPs where certain things have to happen. I think that we we empower tribunals and, and really respect party autonomy, and I think that works well for some of these high value complex cases. 

Lara Quie: Yup, I mean that, that sounds pretty convincing.

Kevin Nash: I may need to shorten that pitch. If you call that an elevator pitch, 

it would require 120 floor building for me to be able to pitch that all the way up. 

Lara Quie: It all sounds really good. But just thinking about all of the cyber attacks that we are seeing in the news at the moment, especially in the U.K. Do you have concerns around that?

Obviously the data, the awards, the whole idea of international arbitration is the confidentiality, so the information that you hold is like the crown jewels. What are your thoughts on that and what are you doing at the LCIA on cybersecurity? 

Kevin Nash: Yeah, your confidentiality and the sanctity of your data is one of the most critical things that you, you can have as, as an institution.

We do know that this has happened to institutions before so whether it's ISO certification, whether you're having both onsite and cloud storage, where it's being stored and then of course having the combination of GDPR, PDPA and all of that sort of interwoven in there.

It's critically important. So I think that we are LCIA is in a pretty good place, but it's something that we're working on because we don't want to have to be reactive to a situation. We want to be ahead of any of these situations. And of course, users have to be confident in the way that their data is being handled.

So we, we have a, a very important state case that we're administering right now where we're having to look or we're using safes chain of custody protocols. All of these things, I think are critically important that users have the confidence that their data is going to be secure. So in a good place right now at LCIA, but something that we're being very intentional about and many conversations with the board and our IT department.

Lara Quie: Hmm. Is there a question that I haven't asked you but is on a topic that actually you feel it's important that you'd like to discuss? 

Kevin Nash: Oh, I don't know. Well, you know, me, I can talk about arbitration all day. I think that what I like to talk about in addition to the advantages of LCIA, I think I'm really a promoter of international arbitration and institutional arbitration generally. So I think a lot of, a lot of the things that are happening in arbitration right now, I would like to talk about those big macro issues. So what are, what are we doing to ensure that international arbitration remains the preferred form of resolving cross-border disputes?

I think. Because what you see now, Lara, you would know this very well, is that you have a lot of blended mechanisms, so you're seeing so combinations of mediation and arbitration, structured negotiation and arbitration, adjudication and arbitration, all of this. And I think what's important for us in arbitration is really being able to take actionable steps.

So say we talk about time and costs. We're gonna be talking about that at conferences over and over again. But are we really doing something to make sure that we're actually giving effect to this? Because if we start to take our foot off the accelerator a little bit, some of these other very good forms of resolving cross border disputes are going to start increasing in popularity.

So I think all of the. The, I think the very useful discussions that we have, I think we need to make sure that we're putting these into practice because it becomes a little bit like a conversation about children's laughter. I think that we all can agree that children's laughter is nice to hear and it is a very good thing.

The same way that we can all agree that having more time efficient and cost efficient arbitrations is important, but I really don't want to be talking about this at a conference in 2030. I want this to be resolved. So I think when you're, say, SIAC, implementing the streamlined procedure, so you have an arbitration that's going to conclude in three months.

I think this was a very important actionable step. I think that the, the way that institutions are reporting is important, and I've been discussing this publicly that I want to publish institutional timelines. Because we always talk about timing and cost efficiency, but if you have, say, a $5 billion case, you're not going to resolve it in six months and no one would want it resolved in six months.

So is there any delay that is being occasioned by the institution? How can we tell users that an application for consolidation at LCIA takes 2.5 days or that LCIA responds to a request for arbitration in 1.2 days? I think this is the kind of data reporting that is important for institutions to do and by extension there's been a longstanding discussion at IFKAI about harmony of statistical reporting.

Now, I like to think that I know a little bit about institutional arbitration, but I will confess that I sometimes get a bit confused of how institutions are counting cases and like to be able to get an apples for apples comparison. I think would be an a bit more statistical data on institutional timelines, maybe even settlement rates as well, so that we can give all of these users and we can show all of the users how effective arbitration is, and then when they can really make a proper choice between institutions.

I think that is important for the long term credibility of institutional arbitration and also the sustainability of international arbitration. Now that is. An easy one that you haven't asked. I think a more difficult one that we deal with often is the interaction of sanctions. And international arbitration 'cause of course, you know that LCIA operates under the general license to be able to take payments from parties, from Russia and Belarus. This is a system that is, that is working very well. But I think that overall interaction of sanctions and international arbitration, this is something that is very, very commonplace and I think very important for arbitration and dispute resolution. But that is, a much longer conversation than the time that we may have on this podcast. 

Lara Quie: Okay. I think one final question I have is can you ever imagine AI being the arbitrator where under LCIA, there'll be some sort of online form of dispute resolution that is completely automated with no humans involved?

Kevin Nash: So they have that on eBay right now, I think. Or, or don't they? 

Lara Quie: Yes. 

Kevin Nash: Yeah. So some language issues in national legislation in the New York convention of having a, of having a non-human arbitrator. I think that probably the future is something that the AAA ICDR is trialing right now, where you'll have an initial decision that is generated by AI but then it's under the supervision say, of an international arbitrator that then effectively sense checks the AI decision. I think like anything in arbitration, you really have to listen to the market. So is this something that parties want? I suppose that if I had I have a, a , certain dispute that I'm handling myself right now, it's for about 1200 pounds for something that I need refunded.

And let's say if there was an arbitration clause in that, I probably wouldn't want to go to LCIA and I would probably be satisfied with having an AI arbitrator determine this dispute for me. So if there is a market demand for it and it's by agreement of the parties, I, I can see some form of that, whether there's a human oversight or not.

I think it probably leans in the direction of human, human oversight, at least in the reasonably, near, near term. But I think we have to be open-minded to it. I can remember being sort of a a silent or, or a, a solitary voice when I was talking about having unreasoned awards for fast track procedures.

Because of course the model law provides at least the model law jurisdictions that the parties may agree that no reasons are to be given. And I thought, why don't we take a very significant step in fast track arbitration? And these are conversations that I've had in Rol and at SIAC let's have unreasoned awards.

But I don't think that arbitration is quite ready for that yet. But that is similar in spirit to an AI arbitrator for these small value disputes. Do you really need to have reasons? Do you really need to have a human arbitrator or is it just a question that is simple enough that it could be dealt with without reasons or dealt with by an AI arbitrator?

So I think that we're starting to sort of inch in that direction, but we'll see where we end up landing. 

Lara Quie: Fascinating. I think the world of international arbitration is just so, so interesting and I love, obviously the international aspects of it. And I think what you've done In your career, Kevin is really quite amazing and, and, and it's so fun to have you here in London. You know, obviously having moved from Singapore, I was thinking that I'd left all friends over there, but no, we're all here. 

Kevin Nash: Yeah. And, and this is not dissimilar to the same conversations that we would've had over a drink in the bar close to Maxwell Chambers Suites. That's right. That we've done. That's right. Just recorded a conversation that we would always have anyways. 

Lara Quie: Absolutely. So if anyone wants to reach out to you for, you know, mentoring advice or of course, anything about the LCIA, where's the best place for them to reach you?

Kevin Nash: I think at my LCIA email address, I was joking. I think I'm the first LCIA representative that has also put my mobile number on, so, very easy to get by email, but also by mobile or text. A lot of the most important discussions in arbitration seemed to be by text and from a mentoring standpoint, I made a promise very, very early in my career that for young professionals and students that I would always find a way to make time to have a discussion with them. 'cause I can still remember what it was like for me that I emailed a cold email to some of the doyennes of arbitration, some of the most senior people in our profession and those arbitration professionals that answered me and gave me a real answer and real advice. I never forget it. And I think that we're pretty good at that in arbitration, is that everyone will usually make time to try to give a steer or guidance to someone that is at the beginning of their career.

So if I can possibly help always happy to give it a try. 

Lara Quie: That is wonderfully generous of you, Kevin, and watch out. Your, your inbox and your mobile are about to be inundated with young people reaching out. But thank you so much for your time today. It's been a pleasure to have you on the show, and thank you very much Kevin Nash.

Kevin Nash: Thank you so much. Great to talk to you.