2025 in Review: Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands

In 2025, arbitration developments across the Pacific region took distinct paths. Australia and New Zealand saw an influx of pro-arbitration cases within the respective country's courts, whilst the Pacific Island nations focussed on capacity building. Below are the key developments from each jurisdiction.

Australia

2025 was another busy year for Australian courts in the field of arbitration. The commercial space in particular saw activity at all stages of the arbitral process from stays in favour of arbitration, to enforcement and set aside applications, though there were also some significant investment treaty arbitration developments.

Commercial Arbitration

In Oil Basins Ltd v Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd [2025] VSC 34, the Victorian Supreme Court upheld the kompetenz-kompetenz principle by staying parallel litigation proceedings in favour of arbitration. In Elecnor Australia Pty Ltd v Clough Projects Australia Pty Ltd [2025] NSWSC 610 the New South Wales Supreme Court (“NSWSC”) took a balanced approach in referring certain claims to arbitration regarding a construction contract, while holding other claims relating to the entry into administration of one of the parties to be incapable of settlement by arbitration due to its public interest element.

At the post-arbitration stage, the Federal Court of Australia (“Federal Court”) considered a number of applications for enforcement, demonstrating a willingness to make practical orders upholding the fruits of an arbitral award. For example, in Roadpost Inc v Beam Communications Pty Ltd [2025] FCA 120, the Federal Court ordered enforcement by way of specific performance; while in Ningbo Weisheng Dingxuan Equity Investment Fund Partnership Enterprise (Limited Partnership) v Zhong [2025] FCA 1053 it made use of equitable remedies to allow enforcement against assets of an award debtor held jointly with another tenant. The Federal Court also demonstrated a willingness to make orders preserving assets to ensure effective enforcement of arbitral awards as seen in Qinao Lianchuang (Zhuhai) Development Co Ltd v Shandong Yulong Gold Co Ltd [2025] FCA 912 and The Infant Food Company Pty Ltd v Willis Trading Ltd [2025] FCA 682.

As a complement to this pro-enforcement approach, the high threshold to set aside awards in Australia was confirmed in Clarke Energy (Australia) Pty Ltd v Power Generation Corporation (Trading as Territory Generation) and Robert Holt KC [2025] QSC 64, a decision discussed on the Blog here. In contrast, a decision of the Supreme Court of Western Australia in Fremantle Port Authority v Martin [2025] WASC 301 confirmed that courts will intervene to protect the sanctity and procedural fairness of arbitration, though this remains a high bar.

Lastly, in a rarer type of post-award dispute, the Queensland Court of Appeal considered the common law doctrine of “privity of interest” in KGLNG E&P Pty Ltd v Santos Toga Pty Ltd [2025] QCA 114 (“Santos”), as discussed in this post.

Investment Arbitration

There were also significant developments in the investment arbitration space. In a judgment, discussed on the Blog here and here, the Full Court of the Federal Court upheld India’s claim to sovereign immunity from enforcement of an investment treaty award under the New York Convention. The High Court of Australia heard an appeal against that decision in early November. Its decision will be one to watch in 2026. In August, the Federal Court enforced four ICSID awards issued against Spain in Blasket Renewable Investments LLC v Kingdom of Spain [2025] FCA 1028. Notably, the Federal Court rejected Spain’s arguments that the landmark High Court decision in Kingdom of Spain v Infrastructure Services Luxembourg Sàrl [2023] HCA 11 was wrongly decided and that the four intra-EU awards were not binding in light of the Achmea and Komstroy decisions. Australia also had a win as the respondent in one of the investment treaty arbitrations commenced by Zeph Investments with the Tribunal issuing an award dismissing jurisdiction. As discussed in this post from 2024, there are other claims brought by Zeph against Australia which remain on foot.

Events and Other Developments

2025 marked the 40th anniversary of the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration. The occasion was fittingly feted with a record-breaking Australian Arbitration Week (“AAW”) in Sydney. As reported on the Blog, the programme of over 60 events included the flagship International Arbitration Conference on Revolutions & Solutions: Future-Proofing Arbitration and a host of other panels addressing topics such as, Arbitration in 2065, disputes in the defence sector, and mass claims in international arbitration. The topical issues of mass claims and technology arbitration were also considered earlier in this post on the use of arbitration agreements in dating apps.

There have been no recent changes to the legislative regime for arbitration in Australia. However, as discussed in this post, some have suggested that Australia should legislate a default rule for determining the governing law of an arbitration agreement, as recently done in the UK and common law jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific.

New Zealand

As with Australia, the arbitration community and jurisprudence in New Zealand (“NZ”) continued to affirm the jurisdiction’s strong support for international arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism. 

Standouts

Following recent changes to arbitration legislation in England and Wales, the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand (“AMINZ”) Arbitration Day broached potential reforms to the NZ Arbitration Act 1996 ("NZ Act"), which is now approaching its 30th anniversary. There was also a strong focus on the practical realities of arbitration procedure, centered on relevant upsides and downsides from a user perspective. The Second Aotearoa New Zealand Arbitration Survey highlighted, inter alia, that arbitration disputes in NZ generally concern property, contract and commercial, and construction matters and that they are on average, resolved faster than those within the court system. Dr Anna Kirk's report on the AMINZ Arbitration Day can be found here.

As discussed in this post, the High Court of New Zealand (“NZHC”) in Acanthus v Watercare Services Ltd [2025] NZHC 479 established that the Fiona Trust presumption would not necessarily resolve inconsistent jurisdiction choices by dispute resolution clauses in multi-contract situations. Instead, the NZHC set out guidance points, including a “starting presumption” that inconsistent jurisdiction clauses are not intended to overlap, and are intended to deal with their own subject matter exclusively.  

In McCracken v Boyer [2025] NZHC 546 the NZHC opined that arbitrators have broad discretion to award costs, and consequently are not bound to follow domestic court cost scales (see here). 

Court Intervention, Interim Measures and Privity of Third Parties

Further, NZ courts discussed the extent of court intervention in arbitration in Antipodes New Zealand Ltd v Accel (HK) Company Ltd [2025] NZCA 18. The Court of Appeal emphasised that a court’s power to hear appeals on questions of law under the NZ Act should be exercised “sparingly” and should not grant parties “a second bite of the cherry”. Relatedly, in A & H (Kumeu) Ltd v Kumeu Playschool Ltd [2025] NZHC 843, the NZHC observed that the grounds provided for a court to set aside an award under the NZ Act are “narrow”, and that it is “very difficult to overturn an award”.     

Turning to interim measures, in Cavitt v Deng [2025] NZHC 286, the NZHC granted an interim injunction in circumstances where an arbitral tribunal had not yet been constituted. However, in Jellick v Perrett [2025] NZHC 929, where an arbitrator had been appointed, the NZHC declined to grant interim measures because it would “cut across the arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction to resolve the dispute” rather than preserving the status quo. 

Finally, similar to the Queensland Court of Appeal in Santos, the NZ Court of Appeal considered in Spark New Zealand Trading Ltd v Bryan [2025] NZCA 153 that a third party could be bound by the findings of an arbitral award in certain circumstances. 

The Pacific Islands

Unlike Australia and NZ, 2025 was relatively quiet for the Pacific Islands. Following significant legislative reforms in Fiji, Tonga, Palau and Papua New Guinea (“PNG”), momentum slowed, with focus turning to capacity building. Notably, PNG held its first judicial colloquium on arbitration to train judges on its new Arbitration Acts.

Pacific Parties Before Australian Courts

The authors are not aware of any new arbitration cases from the Pacific Islands' courts. However, two disputes involving Pacific parties emerged in Australia.

In China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation South Pacific (Fiji) Ltd v Sinclair Brook Pty Ltd [2025] NSWSC 960, the NSWSC granted a stay in favour of arbitration. The dispute arose from a 2017 design and build agreement (“D&B Agreement”) for an office tower in Fiji that contained a domestic arbitration clause under the Arbitration Act 1965 (“Fiji AA”), alongside a 2018 consultancy agreement for construction management services without an arbitration clause. After termination and delays in arbitration, China Civil initiated proceedings in New South Wales (“NSW”). 

The NSWSC rejected China Civil’s arguments that the arbitration clause was inoperative, finding that it survived termination of the D&B Agreement under the doctrine of separability, that Fiji’s convention status is assessed at the time of the stay application (not at contract signing), and that arbitrator delay did not invalidate an arbitration given that the Fiji AA allowed extensions of time. The NSWSC also held that non-signatory defendants were entitled to a stay and that NSW was an inappropriate forum given the strong Fijian nexus.

The second dispute resulted in two Federal Court judgments, Stantec New Zealand v Fiji Roads Authority [2025] FCA 1149 (“Stantec No. 1”) and Stantec New Zealand v Fiji Roads Authority (No 2) [2025] FCA 1498 (“Stantec No. 2”). It stemmed from a 2012 consultancy agreement for Fiji’s road management services which contained a multi-tiered dispute resolution clause requiring good faith discussions, failing which parties “may” resort to mediation and arbitration (“DR clause”).

Long running disputes over unpaid invoices and alleged unlawful termination remain ongoing in the Fjian courts, which declined to stay proceedings in favour of mediation or arbitration, on the basis that the DR clause was not mandatory (see here). Stantec subsequently obtained a final award against the Fiji Roads Authority (“FRA”) which it sought to enforce in Australia. 

In Stantec No. 1, the Federal Court accepted that Stantec had validly served the enforcement application on the FRA in accordance with Fijian law. In Stantec No. 2, the Court recognised and enforced the final award, holding that the FRA had no immunity under Australia’s Foreign States Immunities Act 1985 (Cth) as the final award concerned a commercial transaction. The Court also declined to adjourn enforcement on the basis that the FRA had an application for setting aside in Fiji, as there was no meaningful status quo to preserve and because an adjournment was inconsistent with the objectives of certainty, finality and efficiency.

Regional Outlook

The importance of modern arbitration frameworks and cross-border judicial cooperation is clear. Despite progress in the region, reforms and capacity building remain critical, as does the modernisation of laws and stronger institutional capacity across Pacific Island states.

Relevantly, a major development for the region was the Pacific-led International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change (“ICJAO”) which creates implications for arbitration (see here and here). Vanuatu is pursuing a UN resolution to turn ICJAO into “living obligations” and may look to arbitration as part of operationalising the ICJAO.