The UAE as a Seat for Sanctions-Affected and Russia-Related Disputes: What the Data Actually Shows

Geopolitical fragmentation has pushed businesses to think harder about where they resolve disputes. For parties whose contracts, payments or counterparties are touched by sanctions, the choice of seat is no longer a boilerplate decision at the end of a contract — it shapes whether an award can realistically be obtained and enforced.

The UAE is increasingly part of that conversation. It is worth being precise about what the evidence supports, and what it does not.

What the ICC statistics show — and what they don’t

In its 2024 Dispute Resolution Statistics, the ICC recorded arbitrations seated in the United Kingdom (96 cases), France (91), Switzerland (83), the United States (72) and the United Arab Emirates (38). It was the first time the UAE had appeared in the ICC’s top five seats.

The following year the position shifted. In the ICC’s 2025 statistics, the leading seats were France (82), the United Kingdom (78), the United States (70), Switzerland (53), Singapore (42), Brazil (37), Spain (29), Germany (26), Mexico (21) and the United Arab Emirates (19). The UAE remained in the top ten but returned to the lower half of it.

Two points of interpretation matter here, and both are routinely lost in commentary:

• These are ICC figures only. They reflect one institution’s caseload. They say nothing about filings at DIAC, the LCIA, SIAC, HKIAC or the ICDR, and are not a measure of global seat popularity as such.
• Year-to-year movement at these volumes is not a trend. A shift from 38 cases to 19 across a caseload of roughly 880 filings is well within normal variation. The durable observation is that the UAE has now appeared in the ICC’s top ten seats in consecutive years — a position it did not hold a decade ago.

Equally important is what these figures do not show. The ICC does not break seat selection down by sanctions exposure or by the nationality of the parties in a way that would allow anyone to attribute the UAE’s showing to Russia-related work. Any claim that sanctions-affected disputes are driving UAE seat selection is, at present, a practitioner observation rather than a documented statistic, and should be presented as such.

The legal framework, specifically

Vague references to a “modern legal framework” are of little use to anyone drafting a dispute resolution clause. The actual position:

Onshore. Arbitrations seated in the UAE outside the financial free zones are governed by Federal Law No. 6 of 2018 on Arbitration, which is largely based on the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law and was amended by Federal Decree-Law No. 15 of 2023. The 2023 amendments revised the provisions on arbitrator eligibility and conflicts, introduced a new Article 10 bis addressing appointments from within institutional bodies, and expressly accommodated virtual hearings.

Free zones. The Dubai International Financial Centre and the Abu Dhabi Global Market operate separate arbitration regimes, separate common-law courts and separate supervisory jurisdictions. “Seated in the UAE” is therefore not a single proposition, and the difference between an onshore seat and a DIFC or ADGM seat has real consequences for supervisory jurisdiction, interim relief and the annulment standard. This is a choice to be made deliberately at the drafting stage.

Enforcement. The UAE acceded to the New York Convention in 2006. Awards made in the UAE are therefore recognizable across the Convention’s member states, subject in every case to the Article V grounds and to local public policy. Where no treaty applies, Article 222 of Federal Decree-Law No. 42 of 2022 on Civil Procedure governs.

A candid word on institutional stability. Dubai Decree No. 34 of 2021 abolished the DIFC-LCIA Arbitration Centre and the Emirates Maritime Arbitration Centre and consolidated their functions into DIAC. The decree attracted significant international commentary and some criticism regarding legislative intervention in an established institution, and the transitional questions it raised were litigated. Parties assessing the UAE as a seat should be aware of it. DIAC has since operated under its 2022 Rules and the transition is now largely settled, but a candid account of the jurisdiction includes this episode rather than omitting it.

Why parties consider the UAE for sanctions-affected disputes

The practical attractions are real, but each carries a qualification.

Geography and infrastructure. The UAE sits between European, Asian and African markets, has a substantial international arbitration bar, and hosts institutions and hearing facilities used by parties from across those regions.

Privacy. Arbitration is private. It is not automatically confidential: the scope of any confidentiality obligation depends on the institutional rules and the law of the seat, and annulment or enforcement applications before national courts can place material on the public record.

Procedure. Arbitration allows parties to select arbitrators with relevant sectoral and regulatory experience and to shape the procedure. It is not reliably faster than litigation as a general matter, and sanctions-affected cases are frequently slowerthan average, because payment of advances, evidence gathering and disclosure are all complicated by banking restrictions.

Enforceability. The New York Convention framework is a genuine advantage over national court judgments. It is not a guarantee. In sanctions cases in particular, obtaining an award is often the easier half of the exercise; converting it into recovered value against frozen assets, blocked funds or a counterparty whose banking relationships have been severed is the harder half, and should be planned for at the outset rather than treated as a downstream problem.

The sanctions position, stated plainly

This is the point on which parties are most often misinformed, and it deserves to be set out directly rather than implied.

The UAE implements United Nations Security Council targeted financial sanctions, principally through Cabinet Decision No. 74 of 2020, and maintains its own local terrorist list under UNSCR 1373. It does not implement the unilateral US, EU and UK measures adopted in relation to Russia, which do not derive from any Security Council resolution.

That distinction is often described loosely as “neutrality.” It is more accurate, and more useful, to say the following:

A neutral seat is not a sanctions-free seat. The seat of an arbitration does not determine which sanctions regimes apply to the parties, their counsel, their banks or their assets. US primary and secondary sanctions attach on the basis of US nexus and conduct, not on the basis of where a tribunal sits. EU and UK measures attach to their own nationals and entities wherever located. A UAE seat changes none of that.

Counsel are themselves regulated. Under Article 5n of Council Regulation (EU) 833/2014, the provision of legal advisory services to the Russian government and to entities established in Russia is prohibited for those within EU jurisdiction. Representation in — and preparation strictly necessary for — judicial, administrative and arbitral proceedings falls outside that prohibition, as do services strictly necessary for the exercise of the right of defense and for the recognition or enforcement of judgments and awards. The UK operates an analogous regime. The contentious/non-contentious boundary is where the analysis is actually done, and it must be run at the engagement stage.

Issues that recur in sanctions-affected arbitrations

• Payments blocked or delayed by correspondent banking restrictions, including advances on costs and tribunal fees
• Force majeure, illegality and frustration arguments arising from sanctions-driven non-performance
• Termination and suspension disputes where the parties disagree on whether a sanctions event was triggered
• Frozen or blocked assets affecting both security for costs and eventual enforcement
• Arbitrator and counsel conflicts, licensing and fee-authorisation questions where a party is a designated person
• Enforcement strategy across multiple jurisdictions with divergent designation lists

Working with counsel on these matters

Sanctions-affected disputes require the arbitration analysis and the regulatory analysis to be run together from the first day. The questions of whether a claim can be brought, whether counsel can act, whether fees can lawfully be received, and whether an eventual award can be enforced are interdependent, and answering them in sequence rather than in parallel tends to produce expensive surprises.

The Law Office of Sean Ekhlas advises on cross-border commercial disputes, with a focus on international arbitration and sanctions-related matters. 

Getting advice

If your business is facing a cross-border dispute with or without a sanctions dimension, the useful time to take advice is before positions harden when a payment is first blocked, when a counterparty first invokes a sanctions clause, or when a contract is being drafted with a counterparty in an exposed jurisdiction.