According to Mallesons' Pathma Nagarajan, Perth is well positioned to emerge as an international arbitration centre. 

"It's closer to Asian capital cities and centres; it's in a more comparable time zone. It should, with its speedy and efficient court systems, at both federal and state levels, have significant advantages over the eastern states," she said.

At the moment, Singapore and Hong Kong have established themselves as the region's premier international arbitration centres. However, the rapid rise in international arbitration means that there is plenty of room for competition in this space.

"At the moment we are being inundated with front-end work. We haven't seen any increased in the back end. But, as things develop, it would be logical to expect that some of these agreements would end up in dispute and, therefore, I'd expect to see firms begin to move more resources from the front end to the dispute resolution side," she said.

Although Nagarajan acknowledges that Perth has a long way to go in order to compete with the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong, she notes that a greater awareness of the benefits of arbitration by the Australian judiciary would be required.

Nagarajan, a chartered arbitrator, is a fellow at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIA) and construction law expert. In addition, she is a fellow of the Western Australian Institute of Dispute Management and a fellow of the Malaysian Institute of Arbitrators.