ArbitralWomen Breakfast Moot in Australia: “This House believes that the pursuit of diversity in arbitration has lost its momentum and is no longer a meaningful driver of change in the profession.”
On 14 October 2025, ArbitralWomen and ArbitralWomen Corporate Subscribers Ashurst and HKA hosted a Breakfast Moot Panel in Australia. The panel’s theme was: “This House believes that the pursuit of diversity in arbitration has lost its momentum and is no longer a meaningful driver of change in the profession.”
Following a warm welcome and an Acknowledgement of Country, Erin Eckhoff (Senior Associate, Ashurst) and ArbitralWomen Board Member Anna Kelly (Associate Director, HKA) provided the context for this morning’s debate and introduced the moderator for the session, Swee Yen Koh (Senior Counsel, Partner, WongPartnership LLP).
Swee Yen Koh opened the debate with an anonymous audience poll: do you agree or disagree with the statement: “The pursuit of diversity in arbitration has lost its momentum and is no longer a meaningful driver of change in the profession”. The opinion of the room was almost equally divided, with 53% siding with the “agree” position and 47% siding with “disagree”.
The debate then commenced with the four esteemed debaters taking to the stage to argue their assigned positions. Jonathan Humphrey (Partner, HKA) and Ruimin Gao (Arbitration practitioner) argued in favour of the statement, while Georgia Quick (Partner, Ashurst) and Domenico Cucinotta (Special Counsel, Corrs Chambers Westgarth) took the opposing view.
Submitted by ArbitralWomen Member Sophie Munson (Senior Consultant, HKA)