The UK Government has now confirmed that the Arbitration Act 2025 will come into force on 1 August 2025. The new Act will apply to (i) arbitration proceedings with a seat in England and Wales and court proceedings in respect of arbitration proceedings (in each case insofar as they are commenced after that date) (ii) all arbitral awards made after that date.

As noted in our previous blog post, the Arbitration Act 2025 amends provisions of the Arbitration Act 1996. Key changes include:

• A new power for arbitrators to dismiss claims or issues at an early stage if there is ‘no real prospect’ of success – thereby giving them an equivalent to the English courts’ power to grant summary judgment and potentially speeding up dispute resolution.
• The duty that arbitrators disclose circumstances which might cast reasonable doubt on their impartiality – while the arbitrators were already under a duty of impartiality, this bolsters that position and puts the common law duty of disclosure on a statutory footing, providing additional assurance for parties that the tribunal will be impartial.
• Narrowing the scope for courts to consider jurisdictional objections where those have already been dealt with by the tribunal – this responds to a gap created by case law and should prevent a party using the court to relitigate matters already decided by the tribunal.
• A new power for courts to make orders against third parties, for instance to preserve evidence or take witness evidence, as well as in support of emergency arbitrators.
• A new provision that applies the law of the seat as the ‘default’ governing law of the arbitration agreement^[1], in the absence of the parties agreeing otherwise. Practically speaking, this means that English seated commercial arbitrations will be deemed to have arbitration agreements governed by English law.

If you would like to discuss the changes the adoption of the 2025 Act may bring for you and your agreements or disputes, please contact Anna Maxwell.

[1] Note this does not apply to investment treaty disputes.