The Court of Arbitration for Art
The Court of Arbitration for Art (“CAfA”) is a specialised, alternative dispute resolution body focused on resolving legal disputes affecting visual artworks.
The visual art marketplace is characterised by customs, practices, and quandaries that are not necessarily present in markets for other goods and commodities. Determining an artwork’s authenticity is highly specialised and can involve multiple disciplines. The same can be true of chain-of-title disputes. Copyright and “fair use” analyses involving works of visual art are also approached uniquely.
In addition, because visual art can often be transferred across borders with relative ease, issues of choice of law and an understanding of the potential application of various international laws and their respective commercial and regulatory codes are often fundamental.
The CAfA was founded with two primary objectives: first, to promote decisional accuracy in cases involving visual art; and second, to promote market acceptance of those legal determinations. The core and unique characteristics of the CAfA that were conceived to meet these objectives include:
1. the offering of an international roster of neutrals (both arbitrators and mediators) who regularly practice in the field of art law, and who are familiar with both the legal issues that typify disputes involving visual art as well as relevant marketplace customs and connotations;
2. the offering of specialised expert pools in the areas of provenance research and forensic science; and
3. The offering of specialised case administrators to assist the parties and the neutrals in developing bespoke and cost-efficient discovery plans based upon the realistic needs of each particular case.
The CAfA offers other specialised rules that are considered necessary for marketplace acceptance, including a requirement that arbitration decisions be written and reasoned, with party names redacted for confidentiality but works of art identified. The CAfA also sets out default rules to avoid collateral litigation over choice-of-law disputes and time-based defences. The CAfA rules were developed by international art law practitioners, with particular attention to providing a balanced dispute-resolution environment for all market stakeholders.
The CAfA Arbitration and Mediation Rules
The CAfA Arbitration Rules and the CAfA Mediation Rules are available below.
The CAfA arbitrator and mediator pool
This part of the site is under construction.
Commence CAfA proceedings
To commence CAfA proceedings, you may submit a request for arbitration or a request for mediation using the NAI platform.
Submit a dispute to CAFA arbitration or mediation