By Taimur Malik and Maleeka Bokhari
The growth of the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration (SCCA) over the past decade is part of a broader development in the dispute resolution landscape of the Middle East. As Saudi Arabia expands its role as an investment destination and source of outbound capital, the Kingdom has also been developing the legal and institutional infrastructure needed to support increasingly complex commercial relationships.
Established in 2014 as an independent, non-profit institution, SCCA administers arbitration and mediation proceedings from its headquarters in Riyadh and also maintains a branch office in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). Its development is particularly relevant for businesses and practitioners operating across the Gulf, Pakistan and other markets with significant commercial relationships with Saudi Arabia.
A Growing Caseload
Perhaps the clearest measure of SCCA’s development is its caseload. In 2025, SCCA registered 182 cases, representing a 52% increase over the preceding year. Of these, 119 were arbitrations. The amount in dispute in arbitrations registered during the year was approximately US$1.09 billion. Among these arbitrations, construction and engineering was the largest sector, accounting for approximately 47% of cases.
The trajectory has continued. SCCA reported in June 2026 that more than 200 cases had already been registered during the first half of the year. More recently, in September 2026, it stated that its cumulative caseload across its services had exceeded 1,000 cases involving parties from 30 countries, with an aggregate value in dispute exceeding US$3.62 billion.
These numbers remain considerably smaller than those of the world’s largest established arbitral institutions, but the direction of travel is noteworthy. They also reflect the scale of commercial and infrastructure activity taking place in Saudi Arabia.
Institutional Development
SCCA’s institutional architecture has evolved alongside its caseload. Its 2023 Arbitration Rules revised SCCA’s existing emergency arbitration and expedited procedures and introduced or developed a number of other features familiar to users of established international institutions, including consolidation and joinder, early disposition of claims and a more detailed framework for multi-contract and multi-party disputes.
The SCCA Court, operational since May 2023 and institutionally separate from SCCA’s Board and Secretariat, performs functions including arbitrator appointments and challenges, consolidation decisions, the determination of fees and expenses and the review of arbitral awards. By June 2026, the Court had issued 821 determinations.
There has also been a noticeable emphasis on speed. SCCA reported average case durations in 2025 of 259 days for regular proceedings and 148 days for expedited proceedings. Such averages inevitably require caution—the duration of any arbitration depends heavily upon its complexity, the parties and the tribunal—but publication of this data is useful for users assessing institutional options.
SCCA introduced revised Mediation Rules in August 2026, strengthening confidentiality and privacy protections, regulating electronic mediation sessions and permitting settlement agreements to be signed electronically. It simultaneously introduced new Small Claims Procedures for disputes in which the aggregate amount claimed does not exceed SAR 200,000. These contemplate a primarily documents-based process and require the sole arbitrator to issue the final award within 30 days of appointment.
Beyond Case Administration
SCCA has increasingly combined case administration with institution-building. Riyadh International Disputes Week has become an important component of this effort. Its 2026 edition comprised 95 events hosted by 74 organisations, with 380 speakers and reported in-person attendance exceeding 6,100 participants representing 104 nationalities.
SCCA has also pursued engagement with courts, arbitral institutions and practitioners internationally. Its activities have included judicial dialogue concerning the New York Convention, an international Arabic arbitration moot, programmes in major arbitration centres and engagement with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). In 2026, following an invitation from the UNCITRAL Secretariat, SCCA prepared a country report on Saudi arbitration legislation and jurisprudence for a forthcoming edition of the UNCITRAL Digest of Case Law on the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration.
Its recent international outreach is also revealing. In September 2026, SCCA released Chinese translations of its Arbitration and Mediation Rules alongside programming focused on Saudi-Chinese investment. SCCA reports that cases involving a Chinese party now rank second within its caseload. This is a sensible example of an institution responding to changing patterns of investment rather than viewing arbitration purely through the traditional European and North American arbitration markets.
Why this matters for Pakistan
There is a corresponding Pakistani dimension which deserves greater attention. Pakistani parties have appeared in SCCA’s caseload since its relatively early years. More importantly, the economic relationship between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is widening beyond traditional government-to-government ties. The Saudi-Pakistan Economic Cooperation Framework, launched in 2025, identifies energy, mining, industry, information technology, tourism, agriculture and food security among the priority areas for increased trade and investment.
These are precisely the sectors in which substantial cross-border projects tend to generate sophisticated contractual arrangements and, occasionally, disputes.
Pakistani companies entering Saudi projects, Saudi investors deploying capital into Pakistan, and advisers structuring joint ventures between the two jurisdictions should therefore consider dispute resolution architecture at the transaction stage rather than after disagreements arise.
Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are contracting states to the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. Pakistan also signed the Singapore Convention on Mediation in 2025, although it has not yet ratified it, while Saudi Arabia ratified the Convention in 2020. These developments reinforce the importance of arbitration and mediation to bilateral commerce, although the Singapore Convention does not yet provide a treaty-based enforcement framework in Pakistan because Pakistan has signed but not ratified it.
None of this means that SCCA will necessarily be the appropriate institution for every Saudi-Pakistani transaction. Depending upon the governing law, seat, parties, assets and enforcement strategy, institutions such as the ICC, LCIA, SIAC, DIAC or other arbitral mechanisms may equally be appropriate. Institutional choice should remain a transaction-specific decision.
What has changed is that SCCA should now be understood as more than a principally domestic Saudi arbitration centre. Its expanding caseload, international governance structures, procedural reforms and growing engagement with cross-border business place it increasingly within the range of institutions that counsel advising on Middle Eastern transactions should understand.
For Pakistani businesses and practitioners in particular, that understanding is likely to become more important as commercial links between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia deepen.
