The DIS was honoured to visit Vilnius for the first time as an arbitral institution on 11 September 2025 at the outset of Vilnius Arbitration Day.
The event started with welcoming remarks from Giedrė Aukštuolienė (Ellex, Vilnius) who hosted and supported our event. Shortly thereafter the representatives of the DIS, Chun-Kyung Paulus Suh (DIS Secretariat, Bonn/Berlin) and Ivan Petrov (DIS Secretariat, Bonn/Berlin) took the floor. They outlined the structure, history and activities of DIS, its institutional role, international outreach, and growing regional engagement with Eastern European countries. Special attention was paid to the ways which the DIS Arbitration Rules foresees cooperating third parties: such as consolidation of arbitrations, request for arbitration against additional party, as well as multi-party and multi-contract arbitrations. A mention of the Supplementary Rules for Corporate Disputes set the stage for the presentation of the new supplementary rules which the DIS offers.
Taking up from here Christian Borris (Borris Hennecke Kneisel, Cologne) presented the DIS Supplementary Rules for Third-Party Notices. These rules close a gap between the existing court litigation rules and arbitration. Therefore, it became clear why they constitute an innovation in the international arbitration landscape.
Next came a thought-provoking and engaging discussion on the new set of rules for Third-Party Notices. The Discussion was moderated by Jan K. Schäfer (DIS Board Member) and featured:
Andrius Digrys provided his views as an in-house counsel in the field of shipbuilding on the new set of rules. His remarks were supplemented by the input of Tadas Varapnickas as a Lithuanian lawyer and arbitration practitioner and of Pirkka-Marja Põldvere as an Estonian lawyer and arbitrator. These contributions were put in the context of German law by Georg Scherpf. Karolina Latasz reminded us how important freedom of contract negotiation is from the point of view of common law and how minor the risks for the enforcement of arbitral awards under the new set of rules would be. All participants confirmed that the DIS now offers a convenient off-the-shelf solution for very complex situations involving multiple parties facing the risk of being sandwiched.
The event ended with a pleasant networking session and cocktail organized by Ellex. The DIS is looking forward to its next conferences in Lithuania and the Baltics!
Ivan Petrov