IsraelLawWhen a contract between a foreign company and an Israeli counterparty breaks down, the arbitration clause often names a specific institution. In Israeli contracts, that institution is frequently the ICCA. Yet most foreign parties who encounter an ICCA clause in a contract — or who receive an ICCA notice of arbitration — have never dealt with the institution before and have no idea what the process actually looks like from the inside.
This guide answers the practical questions that come up first: what ICCA is, how to file a claim or respond to one, what the whole thing will cost, how the tribunal is selected, what procedural steps follow, and how ICCA compares to international alternatives such as the ICC or LCIA. It also addresses the changes that Israel's 2024 International Commercial Arbitration Law (Chok Vitsuah Makhlokot Miskhariiyot Beinleumiyot, 5784-2024) introduced and how those changes interact with ICCA practice.
1. What Is the ICCA?
The Israeli Center for Commercial Arbitration was founded in 1993 under the auspices of the Israel Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Lishkat HaMishar HaYisraelit). Its original mandate was to provide a domestic alternative to full court litigation for commercial disputes, drawing on a roster of experienced lawyers, accountants, engineers, and industry specialists willing to serve as arbitrators.
Over the following three decades, ICCA grew to become the default institutional choice for domestic Israeli commercial disputes and, with increasing frequency, for cross-border contracts where at least one party operates in or has significant ties to Israel. Today the institution maintains a roster of more than 200 registered arbitrators across specialties including commercial contracts, real estate, technology and IP, financial services, construction, and employment-adjacent commercial claims.
ICCA arbitrations are governed by the ICCA Arbitration Rules, last comprehensively revised in 2020. Those rules cover the lifecycle of a proceeding: how to file, how arbitrators are selected and can be challenged, procedural timetables, evidence and witness rules, interim measures, costs, and the form of the final award. For international disputes seated in Israel and governed by the ICA Law 2024 (see Section 7), ICCA's rules interface with the statutory framework set out in that law, which is modeled on the 2006 UNCITRAL Model Law.
In Practice: ICCA is the institution most commonly named in Israeli domestic commercial contracts — joint venture agreements, technology licensing deals, construction contracts, commercial leases, and shareholder agreements. If you are reviewing an Israeli contract that says "disputes will be referred to arbitration in accordance with the rules of the Israeli Center for Commercial Arbitration" (or equivalent Hebrew wording), that is an ICCA clause. The most common mistake foreign parties make is treating that clause as a generic arbitration reference. It is not: it binds both sides to a specific procedural framework with its own filing requirements, fee schedule, and default rules on everything from arbitrator appointment to the language of the proceedings.
2. How to File an ICCA Arbitration Claim
Filing an ICCA claim begins with a written notice of arbitration sent simultaneously to ICCA and to the respondent. Under Rule 4 of the 2020 ICCA Arbitration Rules, the notice must include:
- The names, addresses, and contact details of both parties
- A reference to the arbitration clause or agreement being invoked
- A summary of the claim and the relief requested (monetary or otherwise)
- The estimated value of the dispute, which determines the applicable fee tier
- The claimant's proposal on the number of arbitrators (one or three) if not already specified in the clause
- Any proposal on the language of the proceedings
The notice does not need to be an exhaustive statement of claim. A more detailed brief (keter tvin) is submitted later, at the pleadings stage. At the notice stage, sufficient factual summary to identify the dispute and the relief sought is enough.
Once ICCA receives the notice and the initial filing fee, it sends an acknowledgment and formally notifies the respondent. The respondent then has 30 days under Rule 5 to submit its answer, including any counterclaims. Failing to respond does not stop the proceedings: under Rule 22, ICCA arbitrations can proceed in the absence of a non-participating respondent, and any award made will bind that party just as if they had participated.
In Practice: The notice of arbitration is the formal trigger that starts the clock running — both on the arbitration timetable and, critically, on any applicable limitation period. Under Section 6 of Israel's Prescription Law 5718-1958, the 7-year limitation period for most commercial claims is interrupted by filing a notice of arbitration, just as it would be by filing a court claim. If your dispute involves a claim that is approaching the limitation deadline, send the ICCA notice before doing anything else. Getting the substance of the claim polished can come afterward; protecting the limitation period cannot wait.
3. 2026 Fees and Cost Structure
ICCA's fee structure has two components: administrative fees paid to the institution, and arbitrator fees paid directly to the arbitrators. Both are set by reference to the claim amount.
Administrative fees under the 2020 ICCA Arbitration Rules (updated for 2026) follow a tiered scale. The figures below are approximate — ICCA updates its schedule periodically, and the current schedule should be confirmed directly with the institution before filing:
- Claims up to NIS 50,000: approximately NIS 1,500
- Claims of NIS 50,001 to NIS 500,000: approximately NIS 3,500 to NIS 5,500
- Claims of NIS 500,001 to NIS 2,000,000: approximately NIS 7,500 to NIS 10,000
- Claims of NIS 2,000,001 to NIS 5,000,000: approximately NIS 12,000 to NIS 16,500
- Claims above NIS 5,000,000: approximately NIS 21,500 plus 0.1% of the excess over NIS 5,000,000
These administrative fees are paid equally by both sides at the start of proceedings. If the respondent fails to pay its share, the claimant can cover both portions and seek recovery as part of the costs award at the end.
Arbitrator fees are separate and governed by Schedule 2 of the ICCA Rules. For a sole arbitrator, typical hourly rates range from NIS 1,200 to NIS 3,500 depending on the arbitrator's seniority and the complexity of the dispute. For a three-person panel, multiply by three across the panel's combined time. In a moderately complex dispute running to a final hearing over 12 to 15 months, total arbitrator fees for a sole arbitrator commonly fall in the range of NIS 40,000 to NIS 120,000. A three-person panel in a substantial commercial dispute can run NIS 200,000 to NIS 600,000 or more in arbitrator fees alone.
In addition, each party pays its own attorney fees. In Israeli commercial arbitrations, attorney fees for the full proceeding typically range from NIS 50,000 to NIS 250,000 per side for disputes in the NIS 500,000 to NIS 5,000,000 range, with larger matters scaling significantly higher. The tribunal has full discretion on cost allocation under Rule 40 of the ICCA Rules — costs ordinarily follow the result, meaning the losing party pays some or all of the winner's reasonable costs, but this is not automatic and tribunals exercise genuine judgment on proportionality.
In Practice: The most common budgeting mistake for ICCA proceedings is treating the administrative fee as the total cost. It is not. In a NIS 1,000,000 dispute with a sole arbitrator, the realistic total cost breakdown for one side is approximately: ICCA administrative fees NIS 8,750 (half the institutional total), arbitrator fees NIS 30,000–60,000 (your share of a sole arbitrator's time), and attorney fees NIS 80,000–150,000 for a fully contested case through a final hearing. Grand total: NIS 120,000–220,000 per side. Understanding this picture before you file helps you assess whether early settlement is worth pursuing and at what number.
4. Arbitrators and Panel Selection
Under Rule 8 of the 2020 ICCA Arbitration Rules, the default is a sole arbitrator for disputes below NIS 1,000,000 and a three-person panel above that threshold, unless the parties agree otherwise. In practice, parties frequently agree to a sole arbitrator even for larger disputes to save time and cost.
How an arbitrator is actually selected follows a well-defined sequence:
- Party agreement (preferred): The parties have 30 days from constitution of the tribunal to jointly agree on a sole arbitrator or each appoint a co-arbitrator (with the third then appointed jointly or by ICCA).
- List procedure: If the parties cannot agree, ICCA sends each side a list of proposed arbitrators from the ICCA roster. Each party strikes names it finds unacceptable and ranks the remainder in order of preference. ICCA appoints from the highest-ranked mutually acceptable candidate.
- Direct ICCA appointment: Where the list procedure fails or a party does not participate, ICCA appoints directly. This typically takes 14 to 21 days from the failed list procedure.
All ICCA arbitrators must complete a written declaration of independence and impartiality under Rule 11 before accepting appointment. Any appointment is subject to challenge on grounds of conflict of interest, bias, or lack of qualifications under Rule 13 — the challenge goes first to ICCA's arbitration committee and, if rejected there, can be pursued in court under Section 14 of the Arbitration Law 5728-1968 or, for international matters, Article 13 of the ICA Law 5784-2024.
ICCA maintains a roster that includes specialists across: commercial and contract law, technology and IP (including software licensing disputes), construction and engineering, real estate development, banking and financial services, insurance, shipping, and employment-adjacent commercial claims (executive compensation, restrictive covenants, share option disputes). When selecting an arbitrator or proposing names during the list procedure, aligning the arbitrator's background with the technical subject matter of the dispute generally produces better results than treating it as a generic legal appointment.
In Practice: Foreign parties sometimes assume that because the ICCA roster is Israeli, they will systematically be disadvantaged. In practice, ICCA arbitrators are bound by the same independence and impartiality obligations that govern ICC and LCIA proceedings, and Israeli arbitral practice has a strong tradition of procedural fairness in cross-border matters. The more relevant concern is language: many Israeli arbitrators on the ICCA roster have strong English but not all do. During the arbitrator selection stage, raising the language question specifically — and either proposing an English-proficient sole arbitrator or requesting a trilingual presiding arbitrator for a three-person panel — is standard practice and ICCA accommodates it routinely.
5. How ICCA Proceedings Run: Stage by Stage
After the tribunal is constituted, a first procedural conference is held — usually within 4 to 6 weeks of appointment — to set the procedural timetable. Under Rule 18 of the ICCA Rules, the tribunal has broad discretion to manage proceedings as it sees fit, subject to treating the parties equally and giving each a reasonable opportunity to present its case.
The typical ICCA procedural timetable for a moderately complex commercial dispute looks like this:
- Weeks 1–6: First procedural conference; parties agree on procedural order covering language, seat, document production, and timetable
- Weeks 7–18: Claimant submits statement of claim (keter tvin) with supporting documents
- Weeks 19–30: Respondent submits statement of defense and any counterclaims
- Weeks 31–38: Claimant's reply; respondent's reply to counterclaims (if any)
- Weeks 39–50: Document production requests if ordered; exchange of witness statements and expert reports
- Weeks 51–58: Evidentiary hearing (typically 3–5 days for a moderately complex case)
- Weeks 59–68: Post-hearing briefs; deliberation by the tribunal
- Weeks 69–78: Final award issued
Disputes involving pure contractual interpretation on agreed facts can move faster. Cases with significant factual complexity, multiple expert witnesses, or voluminous document production take longer. ICCA does not impose hard deadlines on tribunals by default, but Rule 36 requires the tribunal to use best efforts to render the final award within 6 months of the close of the final hearing.
Interim relief — freezing orders, injunctions, asset preservation measures — is available from the ICCA tribunal under Rule 26 and Section 17 of the ICA Law 2024. For urgent situations that arise before the tribunal is constituted, ICCA's Emergency Arbitrator procedure (added in the 2020 rules) allows appointment of an emergency arbitrator within 24 to 48 hours of a request, who can order interim measures pending the main tribunal taking over. Israeli courts retain concurrent jurisdiction to order interim relief in support of arbitration under Section 9 of the Arbitration Law 5728-1968 and Article 9 of the ICA Law 2024, and parties regularly use both channels in parallel when the urgency justifies it.
6. ICCA vs. ICC, LCIA and Ad Hoc: Which to Choose?
Foreign parties negotiating a contract with an Israeli counterparty sometimes push back against ICCA clauses and propose ICC, LCIA, or ad hoc arbitration instead. Each choice has genuine tradeoffs.
ICCA is the most cost-efficient option for disputes where at least one party has a strong Israel connection. Arbitrators on the ICCA roster know Israeli law and practice, proceedings are embedded in the Israeli legal system (making court assistance for interim measures more straightforward), and administrative fees are substantially lower than ICC or LCIA for small and medium claims.
ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) brings its Paris-based administrative infrastructure, the ICC Court's scrutiny of draft awards for legal sufficiency before issuance, and a strongly international arbitrator roster. ICC proceedings also carry a global reputational weight that can matter for enforcement. The tradeoff is cost: ICC administrative fees on a USD 1,000,000 claim run approximately USD 29,000 (versus approximately NIS 10,000–12,000 at ICCA), and the combined tribunal fees on an ICC three-person panel routinely exceed USD 150,000 for a contested hearing.
LCIA (London Court of International Arbitration) offers one of the lower administrative fee schedules among major institutions and a transparent hourly-rate system for arbitrators (capped at GBP 450 per hour). LCIA is London-seated by default, which can be attractive for disputes with significant UK connections but adds a layer of distance from Israeli enforcement proceedings.
Ad hoc arbitration under the UNCITRAL Rules saves institutional fees entirely but requires the parties to agree on every procedural step themselves. When the relationship between the parties has broken down entirely — as is usually the case by the time arbitration begins — the absence of an institution to resolve procedural disagreements can add significant delay and cost that more than offsets the saved administrative fees.
In Practice: For a contract between a foreign technology company and an Israeli distributor or licensee with a dispute value expected to fall in the NIS 500,000 to NIS 3,000,000 range, ICCA is usually the right choice: it costs less, proceeds faster, and the arbitrators understand the Israeli business context. Where the dispute is expected to exceed NIS 10,000,000 and the foreign party wants the additional procedural protection of ICC award scrutiny, ICC is the better choice despite its higher cost. The worst outcome is picking ad hoc arbitration to save money and then spending six months arguing about procedure before the first substantive hearing.
7. The ICA Law 2024 and How It Affects ICCA
Israel's International Commercial Arbitration Law 5784-2024, which came into force on January 1, 2025, applies to international commercial arbitrations seated in Israel. For ICCA proceedings that qualify as "international" under Article 1 of the ICA Law, this statutory framework now governs: it takes precedence over the Arbitration Law 5728-1968 in international matters, and it supersedes ICCA's own rules to the extent of any conflict.
The definition of "international" under Article 1 of the ICA Law includes cases where the parties have places of business in different states, where the seat is outside the state of the parties' places of business, or where the subject matter of the dispute has a substantial connection to more than one country. Most ICCA proceedings involving one foreign party and one Israeli party qualify.
Several ICA Law provisions directly affect ICCA practice:
- Article 17B (Emergency Arbitrator): Codifies ICCA's existing Emergency Arbitrator procedure for international matters and sets a maximum timeline of 15 days from appointment to interim relief decision
- Article 13 (Arbitrator Challenge): Sets out the challenge procedure: 15 days from discovering the grounds, first to the tribunal itself, then to the arbitral institution (ICCA), then to the District Court — replacing the vaguer process under the 1968 Law
- Article 33 (Correction and Interpretation of Award): Allows parties to request correction of computational or typographical errors within 30 days of receiving the award; the tribunal must respond within 30 days
- Article 34 (Setting Aside): Narrows the grounds for setting aside an international award compared to the 1968 Law, aligning Israel with the UNCITRAL Model Law standard and making Israeli international awards harder to challenge in Israeli courts
For parties who negotiated ICCA clauses before 2025, the ICA Law applies automatically to any arbitration commenced on or after January 1, 2025, if the dispute qualifies as international under Article 1. No amendment to the clause is needed — and no election is available to opt out.
8. Guidance for Foreign Parties
Several practical points apply specifically to foreign nationals and overseas companies participating in ICCA proceedings.
Language. Rule 17 of the ICCA Rules allows the parties to agree on the language of the proceedings. In practice, ICCA readily accommodates English as the sole or joint language of proceedings. Absent an agreement, the tribunal decides. For cross-border disputes where one party is Israeli and one is foreign, a request for English-language proceedings at the first procedural conference is standard and almost always granted. Submit the request explicitly and early — do not wait for the tribunal to decide on its own.
Representation. Unlike some arbitration rules, ICCA's rules do not limit party representation to Israeli-licensed attorneys. Foreign counsel can appear in ICCA proceedings — however, they commonly work alongside Israeli co-counsel who manages the local filings, coordinates with the ICCA secretariat in Hebrew, and handles any parallel Israeli court applications for interim measures or enforcement. The combination of senior foreign counsel for substantive strategy and Israeli co-counsel for local logistics is the standard model in practice.
Power of attorney and apostille. ICCA does not typically require a formal apostilled power of attorney for representation purposes — a written engagement letter or authorization from the client to counsel is sufficient for institutional purposes. However, if your case later involves a District Court application (to recognize and enforce the award, or to seek interim measures under Section 9 of the Arbitration Law or Article 9 of the ICA Law), an apostilled power of attorney will be required by the court. Prepare one early rather than scrambling at the recognition stage.
Enforcement. An ICCA award made in Israel is a "foreign arbitral award" for the purposes of the New York Convention in other signatory states, and an Israeli award for the purpose of recognition under Section 29A of the Arbitration Law (which implements the New York Convention in Israel for foreign awards). To enforce an ICCA award against an Israeli party who refuses to comply, the winner files a recognition application at an Israeli District Court under Section 28 of the Arbitration Law. This is typically a paper process on agreed facts and takes 3 to 6 months. Once recognition is granted, the award becomes enforceable through the Execution Office (Hotzaa LaPoal) using the full toolkit of bank account freezes, property liens, and salary attachments.
In Practice: The single most important step a foreign party can take after winning an ICCA award is filing the Section 28 recognition application immediately, before the other side has time to move or hide assets. The recognition process does not automatically freeze the respondent's assets — it simply converts the award into a domestic Israeli judgment. But once you have that judgment, an experienced Israeli enforcement attorney can move assets into a freeze at the Execution Office within days. Waiting months after the award to begin the recognition process while the other side prepares for your enforcement move is a strategic mistake that occurs repeatedly with foreign parties unfamiliar with how Israeli enforcement works in practice.