The ICC rewrites its arbitration rules: what changes to expect from 1 June 2026

The newly-revised 2026 Arbitration Rules of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC rules) enter into force on 1 June 2026. The revisions matter for any company involved in arbitration, regardless of size or industry sector. What are the most significant changes and what do businesses need to know? 

Power to grant ex parte emergency relief

The 2026 ICC rules expand the ICC emergency arbitrator framework by introducing ex parte preliminary orders. Under the new mechanism, a party may seek an emergency order without notifying the opposing side if notice would risk frustrating the purpose of the application.

In practical terms, this addresses situations where advance warning could allow a party to dissipate assets, destroy evidence, transfer funds, move property, or otherwise undermine the effectiveness of interim relief.

The procedure is well-established in commercial litigation: courts in many jurisdictions routinely grant urgent ex parte injunctions in genuinely urgent circumstances, subject to the condition of requiring a prompt follow-up hearing at which both sides are heard. One long-standing criticism of arbitration has been the fact that parties must still sometimes rely on national courts for genuinely urgent interim protection, which can undermine one of arbitration’s core attractions, namely, the ability to resolve disputes within a self-contained system. 

The transfer of ex parte applications to the world of arbitration, a system that is founded in the first instance on consent rather than sovereignty and is dependent to a greater degree on consensus for its efficient running, is still largely untrodden territory: the rules of most other leading institutions provide for emergency arbitration, if at all, only on notice to the opposing party.

'Terms of Reference' no longer mandatory

A major change for those familiar with ICC arbitration is the abolition of the mandatory requirement for a “Terms of Reference” at the beginning of a standard ICC arbitration.

The Terms of Reference is a detailed procedural document, drawn up under the control of the tribunal. It summarises the parties' claims, the relief sought, the issues in dispute and various further procedural matters. In reality, the practice of distilling the issues into a succinct, combined list had increasingly been abandoned, while at the same time the process of drawing up the document could still consume several weeks at precisely the point at which the proceedings ought to be gaining momentum. What ultimately proved decisive was the ICC's favourable experience of conducting hundreds of arbitrations without Terms of Reference under its expedited procedure regime, introduced in March 2017. This demonstrated conclusively that the requirement was dispensable without any loss of quality or procedural rigour (see the January 2026 ICC Report: "Expedited Procedure Provisions – Eight Years On"). 

The parties and tribunal must still hold an initial case management conference within 30 days of receiving the file from the ICC Secretariat and it is this conference that now becomes the central focus at the outset of the arbitration.

For businesses, the change should translate into a faster launch of the procedure with less opportunity for obstruction from the opposing party in this early stage. A Terms of Reference can nonetheless have benefits and parties may still agree to drawing one up as before.

Power to dismiss hopeless claims and defences 

A party may now apply for the early dismissal of claims or defences that are manifestly without merit or outside the tribunal’s jurisdiction.

Arbitral tribunals generally already possessed broad procedural discretion to deal with such claims and defences under earlier versions of the ICC rules. The problem was that many arbitrators hesitated to use those powers robustly out of concern that an award might later face challenges for alleged procedural unfairness. The significance of the reform lies less in the existence of the power itself and more in the fact that the ICC has now stated it expressly. 

While discussion around early dismissal has tended to focus on weeding out weak claims, unmeritorious defences can be equally costly and disruptive. A party with a plainly valid payment claim, for example, may still face months or even years of procedural delay if the respondent raises meritless jurisdictional objections or artificial factual disputes.

For businesses operating internationally this reform could be unusually valuable and could even be, on its own, a reason for choosing the ICC rules, particularly in jurisdictions where obtaining urgent and effective court relief may be difficult, unpredictable or effectively impossible.

Expansion of expedited arbitration: increased threshold 

The ICC has increased the threshold value in dispute for automatic application of the Expedited Procedure Rules from US$ 3 million to US$ 4 million for arbitration agreements concluded after the 2026 ICC rules entered into force.

This is more than merely an adjustment for inflation: it reflects growing institutional confidence that expedited procedures can handle ever larger and more sophisticated disputes.

When the ICC introduced expedited arbitration in 2017, many practitioners predicted that it would result in due process challenges and lower-quality awards. Those concerns have not materialised. The expedited framework has instead demonstrated that many commercial disputes can be resolved far more quickly, and probably more efficiently, than traditional arbitration practice has often assumed.

The real significance of the Expedited Procedure Rules is not just shorter deadlines but the procedural philosophy behind them. Expedited arbitration typically involves tighter procedural control by tribunals, fewer procedural steps, more focused evidence-gathering, stronger resistance to delay tactics, and greater proportionality between the dispute and the procedure used to resolve it. 

New 'Highly Expedited Procedure'

An ambitious new development is the introduction of “Highly Expedited Arbitration” (HEA). This is a separate opt-in procedure designed for parties seeking an even more compressed process than the Expedited Procedure Rules.

In addition to all the features of the Expedited Procedure Rules, it includes, among other things:

• a limit of just three months in which the tribunal must render the final award from receiving the file from the ICC;
• a requirement that the Statement of Claim must accompany the Request for Arbitration, together as a rule with all evidence the claimant relies on, and that an Answer with any Counterclaims must follow within 15 days and a full Defence at latest within another 15 days; 
• a prohibition on joinder of a new party after the tribunal has been appointed; and
• a default position that there will be no hearing.

It will not be suitable for every dispute. Many arbitrations will still require the procedural flexibility and evidentiary depth of a more conventional arbitral process. This is particularly so for complex construction, infrastructure, energy, or supply chain disputes involving extensive factual records, multiple witnesses, large-scale document production and above all technical issues requiring expertise. Nonetheless, the new procedure could prove attractive for the right category of dispute such as straightforward payment claims, documentary disputes, or claims where establishing the material facts will not require extensive witness evidence and document production. 

Equally, the procedure may prove attractive even in certain complex disputes where all parties share an overriding commercial need for a rapid outcome and are therefore prepared to conduct the arbitration on an unusually compressed timetable.

Looking ahead, a material factor in the uptake of the HEA may be the pace and degree of development and adoption of AI tools that may enormously expedite the heavily data-driven process of arbitration.

Other important changes 

Further reforms that deserve particular attention are:

Augmented disclosure requirements

The 2026 ICC rules institutionalise an existing practice in favour of an arbitrator candidate disclosing any circumstances relevant to an assessment of independence or impartiality. 

They also introduce a novel explicit requirement on the parties to assist this process by submitting a list of all persons and entities whom they believe the prospective arbitrators should consider for this purpose, supported by reasons. 

Explicit power to grant security for costs

The 2026 ICC rules provide explicit support for ordering security for costs where there are legitimate concerns that a claimant or counterclaimant may be unable to satisfy an adverse costs order.

Tighter regulation of tribunal secretaries

The 2026 ICC rules introduce a dedicated framework governing tribunal secretaries. The rules now contain independence and impartiality obligations that mirror those for arbitrators. 

They also prohibit direct financial arrangements between parties and tribunal secretaries. 

Time to award

In place of the current six-month default time limit from Terms of Reference to final award, which is extended so routinely in practice to have become virtually meaningless, the ICC will now determine the time limit and any extension on a case-by-case basis, taking into account in particular the procedural timetable established at the initial case management conference. 

Arbitrator fees will focus more on efficiency and quality

The 2026 ICC rules signal a cultural shift in how the ICC evaluates arbitrators. The previous criterion of “time spent” has disappeared from the fee-setting criteria, leaving it to focus on the remaining criteria of efficiency and timeliness with the addition of two new criteria relating to the quality of the award and the extent to which the tribunal has contributed to a settlement.

More systematic publication of awards

The ICC has now incorporated in its rules its prior practice since 2019 of publishing awards in anonymised or pseudonymised form after two years unless a party objects. 

The rules also incorporate a provision previously in the guidelines enabling the ICC to publish general information about an arbitral proceeding, including the names and nationalities of the arbitrators, their role within an arbitral tribunal and method of appointment, and the industry sector and law firms representing the parties, all without disclosing the names of the parties or “any other identifying information”, as well as extracts or summaries of any orders or awards (including dissenting and/or concurring opinions) and extracts or summaries of the ICC Court’s decisions.

Confidentiality

After considerable debate, the ICC has continued its practice of not including an explicit obligation of confidentiality in the rules, save only with respect to the arbitral tribunal and any person appointed by it. The main rationale for continuing this practice is that users have many diverse requirements not only as regards confidentiality in general but also and more particularly as regards necessary exceptions to allow disclosure for particular needs. 

Since arbitration is by definition a product of agreement, this is an issue that is best left to the parties themselves to regulate at the time of entering into their contract.

Osborne Clarke comment

Several of the changes codify procedural approaches and case management techniques that have been emerging more generally as best practice in recent times. Others are more ambitious and signal a broader shift in how the ICC sees the future of arbitration: faster moving, with more active case management, and more closely aligned with the commercial realities facing the businesses that use it. 

Whether this revision will achieve these ambitions will depend on how tribunals, counsel and institutions use the new tools available to them. But the institutional direction is unmistakable: the ICC is going beyond encouraging and facilitating procedural efficiency, and is now demanding it.

What this means for businesses

• Review arbitration clauses. The revised ICC rules create new procedural options, but not every option will suit every dispute or business relationship.
• Consider whether expedited procedures are right for the organisation. The new Highly Expedited Arbitration may work well for straightforward payment or documentary disputes, but may be unsuitable for technically complex, multi-party, or evidence-heavy cases.
• Prepare for faster-moving disputes and make sure the business can respond quickly. The ICC is placing greater emphasis on early case management, compressed timelines and active procedural control. Strong document management and early internal assessment of claims and defences will become increasingly important.

If you would like to discuss how the new ICC Rules may affect your projects or contracts, please do not hesitate to get in touch with one of our experts.