Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration: Lessons for Uzbekistan

International arbitration has already proven to be a fast and efficient method of dispute resolution in international investment and commercial relations. But this settlement procedure is costly enough that it can be quite challenging for an impecunious party to afford. As a consequence, due to financial hurdles, parties with strong cases who lack sufficient funds might find themselves unable to afford justice. Therefore, for the purpose of delivering justice, Third-Party Funding has become a most-preferred form of financing in the dispute resolution system. Risk-diversification and its non-recourse basis have become the most attractive factors of this financing method. However, this form of funding has already gained considerable criticisms from scholars and practitioners due to substantial and procedural law issues related to it. This is mainly because these issues can pose some problems to the confidentiality of arbitration and related materials, the independence and impartiality of arbitrators as well as to the professional ethics of counsel in funded disputes. In order to deal with these issues, there should be some form of regulation by states because self-regulation has proven itself to be inadequate.