Professional Practice

Louise Barrington is an international dispute resolver with 30 years of experience. She practiced commercial and family litigation in Ontario, Canada before moving into international commercial arbitration after graduate studies in Paris. A Canadian, she is also a permanent resident of Hong Kong and holds a British passport, and is legally qualified in Ontario, New York and England & Wales. A arbitrator member of Toronto’s Arbitration Place, she is regularly appointed by parties and by institutions as co-arbitrator, sole arbitrator and chair, under UNCITRAL Rules, and for HKIAC, CIArb, and AAA-ICDR. She is currently listed as a Band 1 Most in Demand Arbitrator in Chambers and Partners Canada 2023.

For over 25 years, Ms Barrington has arbitrated commercial disputes involving sales (goods under CISG, English law and UCC, mixed sales and service agreements under various American, Asian and European laws), construction and engineering, banking, franchises, insurance, wrongful dismissal, intellectual property and licensing, tort, agency and procurement. She also served for many years on Hong Kong’s ICC Arbitration Commission and the Hong Kong arbitrator nomination committee. In Canada, she has also chaired financial services disciplinary hearings, investigated bank/consumer disputes and has acted as sole arbitrator in numerous domestic insurance cases. She is also an accredited mediator.

Ms Barrington is also active in the academic arena. She taught international arbitration both as a law faculty member (at CityU and CUHK), directed the Construction Law and Dispute Resolution Programme at King’s College London, and has been an external professor at (amongst others) Osgoode Hall in Toronto, PUC in Sao Paulo, Charles University in Prague, and Latrobe in Melbourne. She and is creator and director of the Dispute Resolution Module for the SiLS on-line LLM in International Commercial Law, now attached to Australia’s Bond University. She has taught and/or assessed senior arbitrators for Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, the Hong Kong Institute of Arbitrators and the Toronto Commercial Arbitration Society (TCAS).

Ms Barrington founded and directs the Vis East Arbitration Moot (www.cisgmoot.org) (now in its 21st year). She is the Chief Editor of The Danubia Files: Lessons in Award Writing from the Vis Moot, as well as book chapters on Hong Kong arbitration law. She established Vis East Moot’s Capacity Building Programmes in Cambodia and Myanmar.

Ms Barrington is the founder and former co-president of ArbitralWomen (www.arbitralwomen.org). She created the ArbitralWomen Diversity Toolkit, sponsored by the AAA-ICDR Foundation, to train professionals committed to improving diversity in their own fields; the day-long programme is available around the world. Louise received the CPR Diversity Award in 2011.

Ms Barrington is fluent in English and French, comfortable in conversational Spanish, and remembers some basic German.

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Call/Rights of Audience
  • England and Wales (2001)
  • New York State (1987)
  • Ontario (1976)
Education
  • LLM in International Private Law, Université Panthéon Assas
  • JD, University of Toronto
  • BA, York University-Glendon College
Other Qualifications
  • Chartered Arbitrator
  • Fellow, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators
Professional Appointments & Memberships

Appointments

  • External Professor at York University Osgoode Hall Law School, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Charles University and Latrobe University
  • Director, Centre of Construction Law, King’s College London (2008 – 2009)
  • Professional Consultant, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2006 – 2008)
  • Assistant Professor, City University of Hong Kong (2002 – 2006)
Publications, Lectures & Seminars

Seminars

  • “UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG): ‘Love it or hate it, but NEVER leave it!” (2023)

Practitioner Texts

  • “Third-Party Funding and the International Arbitrator” in P. Shaughnessy and S Tung (eds), The Powers and Duties of an Arbitrator: Liber Amicorum Pierre A. Karrer (Kluwer; 2017)
  • International Commercial Arbitration Course Manual (Hong Kong Institute of Arbitrators; 2017)
  • The Danubia Files: Award Writing Lessons from the Vis Moot (Outskirts Press; 2013) (as chief editor)

Practitioner Notes

  • “Slowly but Surely … Mediation goes Mainstream in Hong Kong?” Hong Kong Lawyer (March 2007)
  • “Dispute Resolution, Management and Resolution: Can We Do It Better?” Building Journal (July 2000)
Scholarships & Awards

Legal Directories’ Rankings

  • Arbitration Powerlist: Hong Kong (Legal 500; 2023)
  • Band 1 in Dispute Resolution: Most in Demand Arbitrators (Chambers and Partners Canada 2023)

Awards

  • CPR Diversity Award (2001)