England’s prevailing Arbitration Act was enacted in 1996 (the “1996 Act”), meaning that it has not been updated in almost 30 years. On 24 February 2025, a revised, modernised national arbitration law, the Arbitration Act 2025, received Royal Assent (the “2025 Act”). It will come into force substantively at a future date, which has not yet been designated.
This marked the culmination of an almost four-year process to update English arbitration law, during which the Law Commission, the body responsible for making recommendations, acknowledged that the 1996 Act “works well, and that root and branch reform is not needed or wanted”. Nevertheless, the 2025 Act does contain some significant changes.
This article provides a summary of four of the most important changes, and the impact those changes could have on current and future arbitrations seated in, or otherwise coming for consideration before the courts of England and Wales. Specifically, it focuses on: (i) how the law applicable to an arbitration agreement (e.g., the arbitration clause itself) will be determined; (ii) the codification of an arbitrator’s – and now prospective arbitrator’s – duty of disclosure; (iii) the new statutory summary determination procedure; and (iv) how arbitration awards can be challenged on grounds of substantive jurisdiction, which is governed by Section 67 of the 1996 Act.
