Zachary Torres-Fowler, a partner in Troutman Pepper Locke’s Construction Industry Group, was quoted in the August 18, 2025 Law360 article, “4 International Arbitration Trends To Watch: Midyear Report.”

• Continuing with the trend of arbitration procedures becoming more modernized, experts are expecting institutions and arbitrators to focus increasingly on expedited arbitration. Although the mechanism has been commonly used for several years, there remains a lack of agreement about what such a proceeding should look like, according to Troutman Pepper Locke LLP partner R. Zachary Torres-Fowler.
• He noted that the formatting of an expedited arbitration often comes down to a particular arbitrator and their preferences — sometimes leading to a more traditional arbitration format that then proceeds with “a much more compressed timeline, which no one’s really happy with,” he said.
• “So I think there’s going to be a real focus — and I do think this is probably going to be something you’re going to see in the next, say, six months to 18 months — on expedited arbitration and what expedited arbitrations look like, and what procedures are very effective in expedited arbitrations,” Torres-Fowler added.
• …
• Meanwhile, Torres-Fowler said that he’s seeing a shift by certain types of arbitration users away from the traditional dispute resolution centers that include cities like London and Paris toward regional hubs that have spent recent years revamping their own arbitral laws. Jurisdictions like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have begun focusing on improving laws relating to commercial arbitration, perhaps in an effort to discourage politically sensitive claims brought against governments under investment treaties, he said.