Reshaping DIFC Arbitration: A Guide to the Key Amendments – Part 1

The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has long positioned itself as the region’s leading seat for international arbitration, offering a common law framework, an independent judiciary and a legal architecture designed to appeal to foreign investors. 

On 11 June 2026, the DIFC Authority (DIFCA) published Consultation Paper No. 2 of 2026 (accessible here), setting out proposed amendments to the DIFC Arbitration Law (DIFC Law No. 1 of 2008) which, if adopted, would be renamed the Arbitration and Mediation Law of 2026. The DIFCA had invited comment on whether Part 5 should instead be enacted as a standalone Mediation Law rather than folded into a renamed Arbitration and Mediation Law. As currently proposed, the mediation regime applies to disputes beyond those arising out of arbitration, whether by agreement reached before or after the dispute arose, by an obligation imposed by law, or following a direction or suggestion of a court, tribunal or government body. 

The proposals represent a significant recalibration of the existing framework touching nearly every stage of the arbitral process. Notably, some of the proposed changes mirror several reforms recently made to the English Arbitration Act 1996 by the English Arbitration Act 2025.

The public consultation process closed on 10 July 2026 and, as at the date of this blog, the proposals remain in draft form. The DIFCA indicated that formal notice would be given if and when the amendments are enacted, and none of the changes discussed below are yet in force. We will publish a further update once the changes are enacted into law.

If enacted in their current form, the proposed changes would be more than technical housekeeping. Several provisions would alter procedural rights, accelerate post-award finality and codify practices previously left to institutional rules and arbitral practice. This blog is the first of a two-part series. This Part 1 works through the proposed amendments thematically, highlighting what would change if the draft law is enacted and why it matters. 

1. Proposed rule on the law applicable to the arbitration agreement

The new Article 12A would be among the most consequential of the proposed amendments. It would provide that the arbitration agreement is governed by the law expressly agreed by the parties for that specific clause or, failing express agreement, by the law of the seat. Critically, Article 12A would clarify that a governing law clause for the main contract does not, by itself, amount to an express choice for the arbitration agreement.

This proposal is modelled directly on section 6A of the English Arbitration Act 1996, inserted by the English Arbitration Act 2025. That reform reversed the English Supreme Court’s decision in Enka v Chubb [2020] UKSC 38, which had looked to the law of the main contract in the absence of an express choice on the arbitration agreement itself. The DIFCA’s stated rationale for Article 12A closely tracks the reasoning behind the English reform, in that the former common law test was complex and generated costly satellite litigation over which law applied to the arbitration agreement, and a seat-based default offers greater simplicity and certainty.

This would be a material practical change if adopted. The law governing the arbitration agreement frequently determines interpretation of the arbitration agreement, including its existence, validity, scope and whether it extends to or can be invoked by non-signatories. By adopting a clear default tied to the seat, the DIFC would take a firm position on an issue that has produced divergent results across common law jurisdictions, aligning DIFC practice with the post-2025 English position. The stakes are illustrated by Kabab-Ji SAL v Kout Food Group [2021] UKSC 48, where the UK Supreme Court, applying English law as the law of the arbitration agreement, refused to enforce an award against a non-signatory parent company, while the French courts, applying French substantive rules of international arbitration at the seat, upheld the same award against it. The provision, if adopted in the DIFC law, would not apply where the arbitration agreement arises from a standing offer to arbitrate contained in a treaty or in legislation outside the UAE. Parties would therefore be well advised to specify the governing law of the arbitration agreement expressly, should they wish to have a different law governing the arbitration agreement than the DIFC law that would other apply for a DIFC-seated arbitration.

2. Proposed rules on asymmetrical clauses and tribunal constitution

Article 12 would retain the pre-amended definition of an arbitration agreement and the core writing requirements, but would expand enforceability protections and add new rules on unilateral clauses. The separability principle is preserved. The restriction on enforcing future-dispute arbitration agreements would extend to cover both employment and consumer contracts (excluding residential property), with enforcement against an employee or consumer permitted only with post-dispute written consent, submission to the arbitration, or a DIFC Court order.

Most notably, the amended Law would confirm, drawing on the equivalent provision in the ADGM Arbitration Regulations 2025 (which does not exist under the English equivalent), that asymmetrical clauses allowing one party to choose between arbitration and court proceedings are not invalid for that reason alone, while voiding unilateral rights to determine the composition of a DIFC-seated tribunal outside the statutory framework. This is a helpful clarification, though the precise wording of the new rule may warrant review to ensure it does not affect valid appointment mechanisms in multi-party or institutional arbitrations.

3. Proposed confidentiality regime and permitted disclosures

Article 14 would retain the default that, unless the parties agree otherwise, all information relating to the arbitration must be kept confidential. The existing exception was narrow, permitting disclosure only where required by a DIFC Court order. The amended version would restructure this into a detailed list of express exceptions, including: 

• disclosures to protect or pursue a legal right (such as recognising, enforcing or challenging an award); 
• disclosures legally required to a government body, regulator, court or tribunal; financial reporting or listing obligations; 
• disclosures to professional advisers and to potential lenders, investors or third-party funders; and
• information already in the public domain. 

Notably, the existing express statutory duty of confidentiality already goes further than the English law position, where confidentiality remains a matter of implied common law duty rather than statute, and the English Arbitration Act 2025 did not legislate on the point. The proposed list of exceptions is instead modelled on Article 45 of the ADGM Arbitration Regulations 2015. This is a commercially practical modernisation, though the scope of the funding and financing exceptions may benefit from further clarification. 

4. Proposed changes to the interim measures and court support

Article 24 would make the enforcement of tribunal-ordered interim measures in the DIFC Courts easier, while a relocated Article 15(2) (discussed below) would separately confirm the DIFC Courts’ supportive powers. Previously, a party had to obtain the tribunal’s written permission before applying to the DIFC Courts to enforce an interim measure. The amendment would reverse that default such that unless the tribunal directs otherwise, the successful party may seek enforcement directly from the DIFC Court of First Instance, with the request copied to all parties. That route is confined to the DIFC Courts in that it does not provide a mechanism for enforcing a tribunal’s interim measure in the onshore Dubai Courts, where the UAE Federal Arbitration Law and the onshore enforcement regime continue to apply.

Separately, the substance currently found in Article 24(3) is proposed to move to a new Article 15(2), which would confirm the Court’s power to grant interim measures in support of arbitration irrespective of whether the seat is in the DIFC. This change is described by the DIFCA as housekeeping, on the view that this power more logically belongs with the Court’s own supportive jurisdiction in Article 15 than with the tribunal’s powers in Article 24. These changes are likely to be among the most practically significant, and reflect a structure similar to the English regime, where the Arbitration Act 1966 separates the tribunal’s own interim-measure powers from the court’s supportive jurisdiction.

5. Proposed changes to scope and transitional application

Article 7 would be expanded to broaden the provisions that would apply where an arbitration is not seated, or not clearly seated, in the DIFC. In practice, this broadens the DIFC arbitration law's reach beyond DIFC-seated proceedings, but not symmetrically. Where parties have chosen a seat outside the DIFC, the new default rule for determining what law governs the arbitration agreement itself will now apply to those foreign-seated arbitrations too, alongside a related cluster of supporting provisions. Where the parties haven't fixed a seat at all, the law's reach grows more modestly: the DIFC courts gain the ability to protect confidentiality of the arbitration and to grant interim relief in support of it, but the new governing-law rule (and its related provisions) stops short of applying — so an unseated arbitration gets some additional protection and support, but not the same governing-law certainty that a foreign-seated arbitration would get.

New mediation scope provisions (new Article 7(4) and 6) would also capture settlement agreements arising from mediation wherever conducted. Importantly, transitional rules limit the amendments to proceedings, awards and settlement agreements arising after the relevant enactment date, unless the parties agree otherwise, and this language merits close attention to avoid uncertainty for pending arbitrations and existing agreements.

Conclusion

Taken together, if adopted, the proposed amendments would represent a modernisation of the DIFC Arbitration Law. They would resolve long-standing uncertainties such as the governing law of the arbitration agreement. Taken as a whole, the proposals track the direction of travel set by the English Arbitration Act 2025, demonstrating the DIFCA is positioning the DIFC as a seat that keeps pace with leading arbitration jurisdictions. The direction is clear: a more efficient, more internationally aligned framework that would reinforce the DIFC’s position as a leading arbitral seat.

*We thank our former colleagues Mohamed Khanaty and Janais Bartholomew.