India in 2026 is not India in 2016: LCIA Director General Kevin Nash on India's arbitration ambitions

Kevin Nash has spent his career in the engine room of international arbitration. After spending about 13 years at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), where he served as Registrar and helped draft four generations of SIAC rules, he took the helm at the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) as Director General in January 2025..In this interview with Bar & Bench's Pallavi Saluja, Kevin Nash speaks about his decision to move to LCIA, the next generation of Indian arbitrators, India's aim to become an international arbitration hub and more..[Watch Video].Pallavi Saluja (PS): You joined LCIA after 13 years in Singapore, where you served as Registrar of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC). What prompted you to leave SIAC and join LCIA?.I didn’t leave SIAC because I was looking for a change. I left because the Director General role at the LCIA is one of those rare opportunities in arbitration that come up once a decade.Kevin Nash.Kevin Nash (KN): I didn’t leave SIAC because I was looking for a change. I left because the Director General role at the LCIA is one of those rare opportunities in arbitration that come up once a decade. It is the chance to lead one of the world’s great arbitral institutions and help write its next chapter.Singapore was my arbitration home for 13 years, and really my second home. I love the place. I love the people. It has the best food in the world. Life there is great. Singapore gave me a lot, professionally and personally, and trusted me with a lot.My SIAC years coincided with a barnstorming period of growth that may not ever be repeated in arbitration. I worked on thousands of cases, designed new procedures and case management practices, and helped build an institution. SIAC has a talented Secretariat, and I hired much of that team, trained them up, and worked alongside them. SIAC’s overseas heads deserve special credit. In many markets, they were the institution, building trust locally and making SIAC feel present far beyond Singapore. I was also fortunate to work with many thoughtful and committed people on the SIAC Board and Court.That experience gives me a unique perspective. I learned what it was like to live case management at a rapidly increasing scale, moving from a regional centre to a global player, and to a certain degree, changing how institutional case management was done in terms of rigour and pace.Then there is the LCIA. In simple terms, it is different. Truly sui generis. In many ways, it helped shape modern institutional arbitration. There is a blue-chip quality built over 134 years that is hard for anyone to replicate. Ultimately, I was not moving away from Singapore. I was moving towards the LCIA and a new challenge. The work has been intense, but the people have made the move easy. The LCIA is a genuinely nice place to work..There is a blue-chip quality built over 134 years that is hard for anyone to replicate. Ultimately, I was not moving away from Singapore. I was moving towards the LCIA and a new challenge.Kevin Nash.PS: It has been over a year since you made this move. How do you think LCIA is different from SIAC?.KN: I have to answer that with some care because, for me, SIAC and the LCIA are really institutions 1 and 1(a). I spent more than a decade building one and now have the privilege of leading the other. SIAC is an exceptional institution, and Singapore is one of the great arbitration ecosystems. The better comparison is institutional character.SIAC is highly structured. That structure has been one of its strengths. The LCIA’s style is more flexible. It trusts experienced tribunals and parties to shape the procedure while keeping institutional oversight where it matters. The LCIA is serious, but it’s not heavy for the sake of being heavy.. The LCIA also has distance from any one market, constituency, or state. Its bench is deep across the Court, Board, Secretariat, and the wider LCIA community. That is part of why parties choose it in complex, politically sensitive, and genuinely cross-border disputes. The LCIA’s global reach is also striking. Over the past six years, LCIA cases have involved parties from 161 jurisdictions, across 70 seats, applying 99 substantive laws. More than 75 percent involved no UK party. In 2024, African parties represented a higher percentage of the LCIA’s caseload than parties from the United Kingdom.There is an Asia-Pacific story here, too. I wouldn’t want to overstate one year of data, but I have seen a significant uptick in Asia’s engagement with the LCIA, and deepening that engagement is one of my priorities. I hope I am a known quantity to many Asia-Pacific users, counsel, and arbitrators. They know how I run cases..Over the past six years, LCIA cases have involved parties from 161 jurisdictions, across 70 seats, applying 99 substantive laws. More than 75 percent involved no UK party.Kevin Nash.PS: What are your plans for LCIA, what are some of the major changes you’ve introduced since taking over as Director General?.KN: The LCIA is already in a very good place. I look at institutions from the inside out, as someone who has spent a long time building these systems.First, case management. That is the core of the job. The LCIA has always had a reputation for serious case administration, but I want it to be even more responsive, consistent, and closely aligned with what users need.Second, data where it helps users. The LCIA has already done important work on costs and duration, challenge decisions, casework reporting, and appointments. Users should have information they can rely on when drafting clauses, advising boards, choosing institutions, or explaining arbitration to clients. Data should build confidence without compromising confidentiality.Third, the Rules. We are looking at the next iteration of the LCIA Arbitration Rules and Mediation Rules. I have worked on five sets of institutional rules, and this is the fourth I have led. It will be a great exercise for the LCIA community.Fourth, global engagement and presence. In some markets, that may mean training, partnerships, programming, and locally-seated LCIA arbitrations. In others, a more permanent, bricks-and-mortar presence may make sense.And running through all of that is people. The LCIA Secretariat is experienced, exacting, and trusted when cases get difficult. The Court brings judgment to the moments that matter, including appointments, challenges, costs, and the application of the Rules. Professor Maxi Scherer’s appointment lends the Court real intellectual weight, and the recent appointments to the Court show how the LCIA is developing in priority markets. Shashank Garg’s appointment, in particular, is a clear signal of the LCIA’s commitment to India.So there are real changes underway. More operational discipline. Better use of data. A Rules revision. Renewed global engagement. A strengthened Court. A hard look at where and how the LCIA should be present outside London. None of that is change for its own sake. It is about making a very strong institution even more useful to users..PS: How important is India for LCIA? Is it possible to set up in India again after LCIA's exit in 2016?.KN: India is enormously important to the LCIA and the UK-India connection is real. This generation of the LCIA understands India differently from the LCIA of a decade ago. These are current professional and personal connections, not fly-in relationships or inherited assumptions. That includes Deputy Director General Jamie Harrison, Counsel Deepanshi Ahlawat, Board Member Sherina Petit, Court Members Anand Desai and Shashank Garg, and YIAG Co-Chair Manish Aggarwal, before counting all the LCIA Board and Court members with India-facing practices.I don’t say any of that from a distance. I have overseen around 1,500 international cases involving Indian parties. I have worked with Indian counsel, arbitrators, users, policy makers, and on issues that reached the Indian Supreme Court. I have travelled to India many times each year for 15 years. It’s probably the arbitration market I know best outside Singapore and London.To the extent that I am good at administering arbitrations, a lot of the credit goes to Indian users and counsel. They are among the most sophisticated, clever, and tactically astute participants in international arbitration. You cannot administer India-related cases on autopilot. That makes an institution better. It certainly made me better.I also know India beyond the cases. I know where Karim’s is in Delhi. I know my way around Khan Market. I have spent enough time in Mumbai that I can give tourists directions around Nariman Point. But more importantly, I have worked with Indian counsel for years, and some of the best oral advocacy I have seen anywhere has come from India. India is not a market I know from conference panels. It is a market I know from 15 years of personal investment.On a physical presence in India, anything is possible, and it’s something we are looking at closely. I would not start with the fact that there once was an office. India in 2026 is not India in 2016. The better question is what Indian users need from the LCIA now.What is clear is that the LCIA will be much more visible in India while preserving what users value about it, including London administration, distance from local pressures, confidentiality, and global credibility..PS: Indian parties have historically shown a preference for SIAC, partly due to geography, partly familiarity. What is the LCIA's pitch to Indian businesses and law firms?.KN: SIAC has done very good work with Indian users, and I know that better than most.For Indian businesses, the clause conversation has evolved. We are seeing more Indian companies switch to, or negotiate for, LCIA clauses, particularly where the contract is high-value, cross-border, or enforcement-sensitive. That includes Indian multinationals, internationally active SMEs, future unicorns, and leading domestic companies.Indian users know what they are doing. They are asking harder questions about value, neutrality, independence, and procedural discipline. They are too sophisticated to be won by inertia. Default choices evolve and clauses age.The LCIA gives Indian parties a blue-chip institutional option that major trading counterparties already know, trust, and like. If the counterparty is comfortable with the LCIA, it becomes easier for an Indian party to get movement on the other parts of the clause that matter, including an Indian seat and Indian governing law. It also doesn’t have to be one fixed formula. LCIA administration with a Singapore seat, for example, could be a fascinating and very effective combination..PS: You've spoken about updating the LCIA Rules. What are the most important changes under consideration, and what is driving them?.KN: The LCIA Rules already work very well. They give tribunals broad procedural discretion and preserve flexibility. Many LCIA cases already move efficiently because the Rules give tribunals the authority to run the case properly. The LCIA Rules are unique, and they should stay that way. There is a certain elegance to the LCIA Rules that we need to maintain while also making them future-ready.Fast-track procedure is a good example of some of the choices ahead. I spent years designing fast-track and streamlined procedures, including during the drafting of the SIAC Rules 2025 and at UNCITRAL, so I am not coming at this as a sceptic. For the LCIA, the question is not whether we copy a formal fast-track procedure, but what problem we are solving and whether the solution fits the LCIA model.Take lower-value cases. LCIA arbitrations quantified at USD 1 million or less already take 12 months or less. Playing devil’s advocate, if we introduce a six-month procedure with no guarantee that the timeline will be met, what have we gained?There are also potential enforcement questions. Are we comfortable deciding contested applications a few weeks into an arbitration, sometimes only on bare pleadings? If the parties agreed to three arbitrators and the fast-track procedure points toward one, have we improved efficiency or created a possible vulnerability under Article V of the New York Convention because the procedure was not in accordance with the parties’ agreement?So this is not hesitation about the fast-track procedure. Far from it. It is design discipline. Any new mechanism must add value, preserve enforceability, and fit within the LCIA model.The driver is simple. The Rules should keep LCIA arbitration efficient, fair, confidential, enforceable, and commercially useful. Add only what earns its place..PS: Sanctions, parallel proceedings, and enforcement risk are now part of everyday arbitration. How is the LCIA equipping itself, and its users, to navigate these?.KN: For an institution, sanctions are practical as much as legal. Can funds move? Can arbitrators be paid? Can a party affected by sanctions participate without compromising the process?The LCIA has a significant advantage here. We have a long history with Russia and CIS-related disputes, and inside the Secretariat we also have two Russian counsel, a Belarusian counsel, and a Ukrainian counsel. These cases require law, judgement, language capability, and practical experience in the region. The LCIA obtained an LCIA-specific OFSI general licence in 2022, at a time when this was a real practical problem for affected arbitrations. OFSI has since issued a broader Arbitration Costs General Licence. This licensing architecture helps cases run where sanctions affect arbitration costs and the movement of money. That matters for claimants as well as respondents. A claimant with a legitimate claim should not lose the process because money cannot move.Parallel proceedings raise a different issue. They test whether the institution and tribunal have the tools to stop a dispute from fragmenting. In India-related cases, that can arise in multi-contract projects, group of companies issues, NCLT or company-law proceedings, insolvency, and anti-arbitration injunctions. The point is not just that the tools exist. The institution has to know when and how to use them.Enforcement risk runs through all of this. The process has to be built properly from the beginning, from constitution and disclosures through case management and a sensible, fast review of the draft award.The answer is compliance, procedural tools, and institutional judgement. The LCIA cannot make the world less complicated. But it can keep the arbitral process dependable..PS: The arbitration world is often described as an old-boys' club. What changes are you making to bring in more diversity to the arbitration space in general and to the LCIA in particular?.The old-boys’ club survives because people keep making safe choices. Too many institutions, parties, and co-arbitrators keep trotting out the same candidates because those names feel familiar.Kevin Nash.KN: Let’s be honest. The old-boys’ club survives because people keep making safe choices. Too many institutions, parties, and co-arbitrators keep trotting out the same candidates because those names feel familiar. That may be comfortable, but it is also intellectually sluggish. International arbitration should be better than that.Institutions are well-placed to fix this because we have the best data. Parties often reach for comfort. Institutions have to reach for fit and performance. And, really, appointments need to match the diversity of our very broad user base. The arbitrator pool cannot be narrower than the users.It also has to show up in the numbers and the systems. In 2024, the LCIA made 455 appointments of 318 different arbitrators from 47 jurisdictions, and the LCIA Court selected women in 45 percent of its appointments. The LCIA also launched EDI Guidelines in 2024. This is the confluence of data, guidelines, and appointment discipline.India has one of the deepest pools of younger arbitration talent anywhere in the world. Having served as an appointing authority in Singapore for more than a decade, the Asia-Pacific market knows my appointment history and the kind of appointments I make.We also need to look at the texture of appointments. We fail as a community if Indian arbitrators are appointed only because there is an Indian party, Indian law, or an Indian seat. Indian arbitrators should be appointed because they are excellent arbitrators. They can and should be appointed in cases governed by the laws of England and Wales, Singapore, Hong Kong, and other systems, including where the dispute has no Indian nexus at all..In 2024, the LCIA made 455 appointments of 318 different arbitrators from 47 jurisdictions, and the LCIA Court selected women in 45 percent of its appointments.Kevin Nash.PS: Cost structure at LCIA, how is it different from other institutions?.KN: The LCIA is sometimes viewed as expensive. The data do not support that. Quite the opposite.I spent most of my institutional career in an ad valorem system determining arbitrators’ fees and institutional fees. I know both systems and how much things cost. The real cost of arbitration is usually driven by duration.That is why I am such a staunch supporter of institutional arbitration. An efficiently run institutional arbitration will almost always be more cost-effective than a comparable ad hoc arbitration.The LCIA model is different in a good way. The LCIA’s administrative charges and tribunal fees are primarily time-based. In this way, the cost of the arbitration is not automatically driven by the number someone puts in a pleading. The bill follows the work actually done. The LCIA’s 2024 Costs and Duration Analysis showed that LCIA was the most cost-effective among the global institutions compared at all dispute sizes except under USD 1 million. The figures can be relied on and were independently verified by The Brattle Group. That is costs with receipts.For Indian users, the right question is not which institution has the lowest schedule of fees. It is which institution is most likely to run the case efficiently, proportionately, and to an enforceable award. That institution will almost always be the most cost-effective in the end..PS: You've flagged AI and digital infrastructure as emerging sectors for LCIA disputes. But separately, how is the LCIA itself using AI and technology in case administration?.KN: The LCIA Rules 2020 helped lead the way on digital procedure. Electronic filing, e-signatures, virtual and hybrid hearings, data protection, and information security are already part of the LCIA framework. The question is how to use technology safely, intelligently, and in a way that actually improves arbitration.There are three tools we are actively looking at. The first is a Cost Calculator, using LCIA historical data to estimate cost and duration from comparable LCIA cases. Real estimates based on real cases.The second is an arbitrator appointment tool for internal and potentially external users, generating broader, more data-driven first lists while leaving appointments with the LCIA Court, informed by the Secretariat.The third is a tool for the review of awards. I have probably reviewed or scrutinised as many awards as anyone, so I care about this. There are fair questions in the market about whether formal scrutiny has become too slow, formalistic, and potentially missing the forest for the trees. The LCIA approach is flexible, practical, and usually measured in days. AI can add safety checks and make institutional review more consistent without replacing judgement.With AI and legal tech, data sanctity is the overriding priority. The case file is the crown jewel.Maxi’s presidency is a huge asset here. She has the scholarship, technical fluency, and institutional judgement to help the LCIA make informed choices in an area where under-informed choices would be dangerous..PS: Where do you draw the line on AI use by arbitrators or counsel, and should institutions be setting those standards?.KN: AI is moving quickly, and I don’t think any institution, tribunal, counsel team, or set of guidelines has the perfect answer yet.On one hand, users increasingly expect lawyers and arbitrators to make use of modern tools. It would be strange to pretend that AI cannot make parts of arbitration faster and more efficient. No one needs a procedural fight about spell-check, formatting, basic translation support, or harmless internal organisation.On the other hand, arbitration is not an experiment in technology adoption. Confidentiality matters. Due process matters. Non-delegation matters. Professional responsibility matters. If a lawyer cites a false authority, ‘the machine did it’ is not a good enough answer.For me, the hard line is decision-making. AI can support the process. It cannot take over the decision. The award must remain the tribunal’s award.How should this be regulated? I think the answer is probably a mix. Mandatory law, professional obligations, and soft law will all have a role. I would not rush to hardwire every answer into the body of institutional rules. Technology will move too quickly. But soft law without practical consequences may also not be enough in high-stakes cases.The LCIA should be part of the solution, but it has to lead carefully. The LCIA took a leading role on party representative conduct through an annex to its Rules. AI may call for a similar architecture: clear principles, capable of prospective application, and flexible enough to be updated as the technology develops..PS: What does India need to do to become an international arbitration hub?.I am an arbitration optimist, particularly when it comes to India. India does not need permission to enter the global arbitration conversation. Its users, lawyers, arbitrators, and courts are already shaping it.Kevin Nash.KN: I am an arbitration optimist, particularly when it comes to India. India does not need permission to enter the global arbitration conversation. Its users, lawyers, arbitrators, and courts are already shaping it.India has the ingredients. The challenge is whether the system can deliver speed, consistency, and institutional confidence at scale.India has made real progress in the courts. It can sometimes be a winding road to the apex court, but at a high level, India tends to get arbitration right. The famous quartet of emergency arbitration cases proves the point. HSBC v Avitel, Raffles Design v Educomp, Plus Holdings v Xeitgeist, and Amazon v Future Retail were watched far beyond India because they tested real questions about urgent relief and the interaction of arbitration with the courts.Speed is the next frontier. Commercial courts or specialist arbitration benches can make a real difference, especially at first instance. So can deeper arbitrator benches, clearer case allocation, and a stronger culture of availability, procedural control, and award quality.Institutional trust is the other major piece. India’s disputes volume is extraordinary. A robust ad hoc regime will always have a role, particularly for smaller domestic cases. But for high-value, cross-border, and complex disputes, India should continue building confidence in institutional arbitration. Government entities, PSUs, and major companies can move the market quickly by choosing strong institutional clauses. That clause practice can cascade through Indian contracts and change the arbitration ecosystem for the better.Finally, India is too important to copy anyone else’s model. The Indian model should combine credible courts, sophisticated users, strong institutions, world-class counsel, deep arbitrator talent, and clauses that match India’s position as a commercial power. Clause makers, not clause takers..India is too important to copy anyone else’s model. The Indian model should combine credible courts, sophisticated users, strong institutions, world-class counsel, deep arbitrator talent, and clauses that match India’s position as a commercial power. Clause makers, not clause takers.Kevin Nash.PS: Where do you see the LCIA in five years, growth in volume, or growth in significance?.In five years, I want the LCIA to be one of the institutions arbitration looks to when the hard questions come.Kevin Nash.KN: The LCIA has clear momentum right now, but momentum only matters if you use it well.In five years, I want the LCIA to be one of the institutions arbitration looks to when the hard questions come. Technology. Sanctions. Costs. Counsel conduct. Diversity. New sectors and industries. Not as a commentator from the side but as the institution doing the work.That is what the LCIA has done for more than 130 years. It has helped arbitration stay usable, credible, and trusted. The task now is to take that history and make it current for the next generation of users.The measure is not whether the LCIA is simply bigger in five years. The test is whether we have helped make arbitration better.