Review of the AAA Updates to teh Commercial Arbitration Rules [L]

Freshfields reviews the AAA’s recent amendments to its widely used Commercial Arbitration Rules—effective as of 1 September 2022:

The amendments provide new rules for consolidation and joinder, not in the prior version, bringing the AAA into alignment with the other prominent arbitration institutions […]  The amendments also offer improved confidentiality, though still less confidentiality than the rules of other arbitration institutions.  The amendments further provide enhanced efficiency, including by allowing arbitrators to choose a virtual hearing and by regulating the use of dispositive motions […]  Finally, the amendments codify the increasingly common practice among tribunals to address cybersecurity at the outset of the arbitration, a practice promoted by the ICCA-NYC Bar-CPR Protocol on Cybersecurity in International Arbitration.