3 Arbitrability of Disputes

This chapter examines the concept of arbitrability. Arbitrability is about whether a certain category of dispute is eligible for settlement by arbitration or should be reserved for state courts. The 1993 Law on International Commercial Arbitration provided that ‘disputes arising from contractual and other civil law relationships and other types of international economic relations, insofar as one of the parties is outside the country’, fall within the scope of this Law. Meanwhile, the 2002 Law on (domestic) Arbitration provided that any dispute arising from civil law relations could be handled by arbitration, unless otherwise provided by Federal law. Despite such provisions, Russian courts narrowly interpreted the scope of arbitrability. For example, disputes on real property were not arbitrable until the decision of the Constitutional Court in 2011. Since this decision, the focus was on the arbitrability of corporate disputes. The 2015 Reform acknowledged the arbitrability of corporate disputes with some exceptions and requirements. Some judges found a basis for non-arbitrability of certain disputes in the Code of Commercial Court Procedure (APK).