Hover your mouse over any party nationality to see commonalities across the different institutions. 

The statistics suggest that in many cases, at least one party was in jurisdictions proximate to the institution itself: the SIAC sees its highest users from Singapore, LCIA from the UK and HKIAC from the Hong Kong SAR. 

Who arbitrates and where they arbitrate is also a function of economics – the United States remains a global heavy investor and is a top-five user across all of the institutions studied here.

Chinese investment has resulted in similarly high numbers of mainland Chinese and Hong Kong parties arbitrating disputes. As to where they choose to arbitrate:

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• HKIAC has a high number of parties arbitrating from the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. These jurisdictions are often selected for investments into or out of China, consistent with the evidence that HKIAC handles a high number of China-related disputes. 
• SIAC's top foreign users in 2023 came from the Hong Kong SAR and mainland China (a total of 2,287 parties). That same year, 72 mainland Chinese and Hong Kong SAR parties arbitrated before the ICC, and 174 before the ICDR. 
• Other Chinese-based institutions like the CIETAC also see significant caseloads involving mainland Chinese and Hong Kong parties. In 2023, disputes filed with CIETAC had a total aggregate value of US$21 billion. Although more than 80% of CIETAC's cases are domestic arbitrations, its international disputes also sees users from the United States, Germany and Singapore - likely as counterparties to arbitrations involving a Chinese party or project.