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LCIA’s Annual Casework Report 2025: Key highlights
LCIA’s Annual Casework Report 2025: Key highlights
8 October 2026
Series
Blogs
8 October 2026
The LCIA has published its Annual Casework Report 2025, which provides an insight into the LCIA’s caseload in 2025 and, for the first time, statistics on the LCIA’s turnaround time for applications and key correspondence. This post summarises the Report’s key findings, which reveal a majority of non-British arbitrators, 77% of LCIA disputes involving no UK party at all and a sharp rise in applications for early determination.
The LCIA received 365 referrals in 2025, only a slight increase on the 362 referrals recorded in 2024 and below the peak of 444 referrals in 2020 (which was likely due to disputes arising from the disruption caused by COVID-19). Of these 365 referrals, 320 were referrals for arbitration under the LCIA Rules. The remaining 45 referrals comprised 27 referrals for fundholding arbitrations (down from 35 in 2024), 11 referrals for UNCITRAL and other ad hoc arbitrations (up from three in 2024), and seven referrals for LCIA mediations or other ADR matters (up from six).
LCIA Rules arbitrations spanned 21 seats in 16 jurisdictions and were governed by 28 substantive laws. London remained the most frequently selected seat (87%), followed by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) (10 arbitrations). Similarly, the law of England and Wales remained the most common governing law (79%) followed by Kenyan law (16 arbitrations).
The top six industry sectors of disputes in LCIA Rules arbitrations remained the same in 2025 as they were in 2024, albeit with some shuffling within these six. The most notable changes are the rise in professional services cases and the fall in construction and infrastructure cases:
On agreement types, sale of goods agreements remained the largest category, though their share fell from 35% to 30%. Services agreements grew significantly, from 18% to 26%, while partnership agreements rose from 1% to 4%. Shareholders', share purchase, or joint venture agreements fell slightly, from 15% to 13%, and loan or other loan facility agreements rose from 11% to 13%.
The LCIA's caseload remained highly international. Parties to LCIA Rules arbitrations commenced in 2025 came from 103 jurisdictions, up from 100 in 2024. 96% of cases involved at least one non-UK party, 77% involved no UK party at all, and only 4% involved UK parties alone.
Overall however, parties from the United Kingdom remained the largest single group at 15.1% of all parties, followed by the United States (7.3%), the United Arab Emirates (7.0%), Switzerland (5.6%), Kenya (4.1%), and Italy (2.7%). By region, whilst Western European parties (including the UK) accounted for the largest share (37.3%), the Middle East and North Africa rose to become the second largest regional group (14.9%), driven primarily by the increase in parties from the UAE.
Disputes involving States or state-owned entities featured in 11% of LCIA Rules arbitrations in 2025 (down from 14% in 2024), spanning 20 jurisdictions and 5% of parties overall.
The LCIA made 403 arbitrator appointments in 2025, involving 304 individual arbitrators across 204 LCIA Rules arbitrations, including three emergency arbitrators and two replacement arbitrators. For the first time in five years, sole arbitrator tribunals outnumbered three-member tribunals, accounting for 50.5% of constitutions.
Overall, arbitrators of 45 different nationalities were appointed in 2025. Notably, for the first time, the majority of arbitrators appointed were non-British (52%, up from 45% in 2024). Where the LCIA Court selected the arbitrator, were 75% non-British, up from 60% the previous year.
Gender diversity of LCIA tribunals also reached its highest recorded level in 2025: 38% of all arbitrator appointments (155 of 403) were of women, up from 33% in 2024. The LCIA Court's selections were 49% women (up from 45%), and both co-arbitrators (44%, up from 39%) and parties (27%, up from 21%) also selected women more frequently.
Challenges to arbitrators remained rare relative to the volume of appointments. Seven challenges were filed in 2025 (down from 10 in 2024), of which one was upheld and six were rejected. This was the first challenge upheld since 2020.
Applications for expedited formation of the tribunal (under Article 9A) and for an emergency arbitrator (under Article 9B) remain relatively low. Fifteen applications for expedited formation were made in 2025, of which five were successful. Seven applications for an emergency arbitrator were made, of which three were successful.
For the first time, the LCIA has published data on how fast the LCIA decides applications under Articles 9A and 9B. Article 9A applications were decided in a median of five days (and an average of six days), with tribunal formation following in a further median of five days where granted. Article 9B applications were decided in a median of two days (and an average of two days), with all three successful applications resulting in an emergency arbitrator being appointed within three days of receipt of the application as required by Article 9.6.
2025 saw a sharp rise in applications for early determination under Article 22.1(viii), which permits a tribunal to determine that a claim, defence, counterclaim, or cross-claim is manifestly outside its jurisdiction, inadmissible, or manifestly without merit. In 2025, 38 such applications were made, of which 10 were granted. By contrast, in 2024, 17 such applications were made and only one was granted.
Whilst the LCIA Rules have included an early determination mechanism since 2020, the LCIA notes that the rise coincides with the entry into force on 1 August 2025 of the Arbitration Act 2025, which inserted a new statutory power of summary disposal into the Arbitration Act 1996 at section 39A.
A full copy of the LCIA’s report is available here.