scholarly journals Vanishing Set-Aside Authority in International Commercial Arbitration

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-154
Author(s):  
Meng Chen ◽  
Chengzhi Wang

Summary Traditional set-aside theory is subject to considerable challenges as a result of an uncompromising trend towards autonomy and internationalism in international arbitration. The silence and ambiguity of international law regarding enforcement of set-aside arbitral awards allow some states to abandon their own set-aside authority or ignore set-aside decisions made by competent courts. This article presents a range of evidence that demonstrates the enforcement of set-aside arbitral awards has become a common phenomenon. This article first introduces robust academic debates regarding set-aside authority. Then this article exposes omission and ambiguity in the legal source, which leads to confusion in enforcement proceedings of set-aside arbitral awards. This article describes and analyses selected cases and practical data in order to summarize the approaches taken by national courts when reviewing foreign set-aside decisions. Finally, this article briefly evaluates the most promising solutions to the contradictory enforcement proceedings of set-aside arbitral awards.

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 117-128

International commercial arbitration (ICA) is an alternative way to resolve foreign economic disputes. Initially, arbitration itself was seen as a neutral court in which the parties to the dispute were independent of national courts. Arbitration agreements and decisions must be recognised by national courts without any complications or review procedures. Although granting commercial parties some independence to agree that their dispute will be considered by independent arbitrators is a key principle in ICA, the struggle for supremacy between national laws and national courts on the one hand and the autonomy of the parties and the independence of the international arbitration system on the other continue. Over the years, national laws have sought to control, regulate, interfere with, or support ICA in various ways. To counter attempts to ‘localise’ ICA and promote equality in this area, private, professional institutions and international and intergovernmental organisations have developed a significant body of law designed to ensure self-government and dispute settlement procedures in ICA. Nevertheless, international commercial arbitration cannot exist independently of national jurisdictions. Examining the activities of ICA, it can be seen that the importance and impact of national arbitration laws and national judicial supervision are significantly reduced, but the lex fori still plays an important role in arbitration. Thus, the reform of the normative regulation of international arbitration also affected Ukraine. The article analyses the radical changes proposed by the legislator regarding the procedure for establishing institutional arbitrations, expanding the arbitrability of disputes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-66
Author(s):  
Saar A Pauker

Abstract The distinction between substance and procedure in private international law has been subject to extensive debates among national courts and scholarly writings. The basic theme that procedural issues are governed by the lex fori, and substantive issues are subject to the lex causae, is widely accepted, although the boundaries between substance and procedure are not always clear. This article examines the application of the distinction between substance and procedure in the area of international arbitration, as regards both commercial cases and investment treaty disputes. It is argued that the distinction between substance and procedure has significant ramifications in international arbitration. The central (though not the only) aim of this distinction refers to the determination of the rules to be applied to borderline issues, such as evidentiary matters, interest, and limitation rules. Arbitral tribunals should have a considerable level of discretion in drawing the distinction. Specified points of guidance are suggested for common grayzone questions. Although the general principles concerning the substance/procedure distinction are similar in investment treaty arbitration and international commercial arbitration, material points of difference, such as the key role of public international law, may somewhat narrow the investment treaty tribunals’ discretion in respect of drawing the distinction.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikaël Schinazi

Drawing on a wide range of previously unpublished sources, this unique history of international commercial arbitration in the modern era identifies three periods in its development: the Age of Aspirations (c. 1780–1920), the Age of Institutionalization (1920s–1950s), and the Age of Autonomy (1950s–present). Mikaël Schinazi analyzes the key features of each period, arguing that the history of international commercial arbitration has oscillated between moments of renewal and anxiety. During periods of renewal, new approaches, instruments, and institutions were developed to carry international commercial arbitration forward. These developments were then reined in during periods of anxiety, for fear that international arbitration might be overstepping its bounds. The resulting tension between renewal and anxiety is a key thread running through the evolution of international commercial arbitration. This book fills a key gap in the scholarship for anyone interested in the fields of international arbitration, legal history, and international law.


2021 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 58-71
Author(s):  
POGORETSKA Khrystyna

This article explores a divergence of approaches applicable to interpretation of arbitration agreement due to the very nature of international commercial arbitration as transnational and multicultural forum. The author also considers globalization of international commerce as a key factor in promoting predictability and certainty of contractual interpretation and thereby promoting uniformity in its approaches. The interaction between the diversity of legal cultures, on the one hand, and demand for uniformity, on the other hand, are at stake in this discussion. Keywords: diversity, uniformity, arbitration agreement, interpretation, internationalcommercial arbitration, intention of the parties, validity, scope of arbitration agreement, national courts.


Author(s):  
Schaffstein Silja

There are currently no rules in international commercial arbitration law and practice assuring the coordination between arbitral awards and/or national court judgments rendered in identical or related cases. This lack of coordination is unsatisfactory, particularly in light of the ever-growing tendency of parties to submit their commercial disputes to international commercial arbitration and the increasing complexity of international arbitration. Today, international commercial transactions and the disputes to which they give rise regularly involve multiple parties, contracts and issues. As a consequence, these disputes (or certain aspects of these disputes) are increasingly tried in multiple fora. In such circumstances, difficult issues regarding the res judicata effects of prior judgments or awards are likely to arise before international commercial arbitral tribunals. The central hypothesis underlying this research is that transnational principles of res judicata should be elaborated for international commercial arbitral tribunals. This solution is justified for several reasons. First, it is justified given the differences among domestic laws regarding res judicata and the difficulties surrounding the formulation of appropriate conflict-of-laws rules. Second, it avoids inappropriate analogies between international arbitration proceedings and litigation. Finally, the solution provides guidance and ensures a certain degree of fairness, certainty and predictability, which is expected by arbitration users. This research seeks to achieve its aims in two stages: Part One examines the doctrine of res judicata in litigation, analysing the doctrine as applied in different domestic laws, as well as in private and public international law. Part Two aims to determine whether and to what extent the res judicata doctrine may be applied by international commercial arbitral tribunals. It aims to demonstrate that transnational principles of res judicata should be elaborated and will seek to formulate such principles.


Author(s):  
Gama Lauro ◽  
Girsberger Daniel ◽  
Rodríguez José Antonio Moreno

This chapter studies how the private international law rules of most jurisdictions have traditionally addressed State court litigation, without considering the specificities of international arbitration. Many nations have now created their own legislation for international arbitration or adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. These laws regularly contain their own rules dealing with parties’ choice of law on the merits. The chapter then explores choice of law in international arbitration with a particular view on the Hague Principles which are, as paragraph 4 of their Preamble discloses, intended to apply equally to courts and arbitral tribunals. It analyses the approach arbitral tribunals have taken when confronted with choice of law issues, and particularly a party choice of the law applicable to the merits of the dispute. The chapter also assesses whether it is correct and if so, for which reasons, and in which way, that commercial parties have a larger autonomy in arbitration, compared to litigation, to choose non-State rules of law, and which types of rules they may choose. Finally, it demonstrates why, how, and to what extent the Hague Principles can contribute to define, delineate, interpret, and supplement existing (conflict of law) regimes in the field of international arbitration.


1969 ◽  
Vol 8 (I1) ◽  
pp. xi-xii

The contents of ILM for the period from 1962 to 1969 reflect several significant developments: (1) the entry on the international scene of many new countries and their establishment of relations with the developed countries, particularly in the fields of commerce and trade and of investment; (2) the prevalence of armed conflict and the use of military force in the unsettled conditions resulting from the decolonization process and from continued antagonisms between the superpowers; (3) the pervasive role of international organizations, both global and regional, general and specialized; and (4) the continued predominance of national courts in the judicial consideration of questions of international law and the shift from general to specialized tribunals in the resolution of disputes by international arbitration and adjudication.


2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-57
Author(s):  
Dusty-Lee Donnelly ◽  
Seshni Govindasamy

The decision in Atakas Ticaret Ve Nakliyat AS v Glencore International AG 2019 (5) SA 379 (SCA) made important remarks to the effect that the discretion to effect a joinder to admiralty proceedings under s 5(1) of the Admiralty Jurisdiction Regulation Act 105 of 1983, and the discretion to refuse a stay of proceedings under s 7(1)(b) of the Act, are ‘untouched’ by art 8 of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Arbitration that is incorporated under the International Arbitration Act 15 of 2017. The court reached this decision on the basis that, in terms of art 1(5), the Model Law does not affect other laws of the Republic under which matters may not be referred to arbitration, or may only be so referred subject to conditions. This case note analyses the nature and extent of the court’s discretion under art 8(1) of the Model Law, the argument for an implied repeal of s 7(1)(b) of the Admiralty Jurisdiction Regulation Act, the interpretation of art 1(5) of the Model Law, and the questions left unanswered by the judgment. It argues that although the Model Law does not automatically oust the jurisdiction of the high court exercising admiralty jurisdiction to hear a maritime claim, the court only retains a narrow discretion to refuse a stay of those proceedings when an international commercial arbitration agreement exists in respect of the dispute.


LAW REVIEW ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Ashish Kumar Srivastava

International commercial arbitration is one of the most favourite mode of dispute resolution in world for resolving commercial disputes. Speed and cost are two important features what makes arbitrationa sought-after mode for dispute resolution because in conventional dispute resolution by courts ‘Remedy becomes worse than malady’ due to delay and cost. Legalism and authoritative courts in Anglo Saxon societies make the justice dilatory and expensive which is termed analogically as a disease of ‘Adversariasis’. Judicial minimalism is encouraged by entrepreneurs and business class of world which results in enhanced thrust on international commercial arbitration. In any arbitration interim measures are sine quo non. The irreparable loss and balance of convenience demands intervention by authoritative body to order and issue processes which can binds parties and third parties. In such cases unless interim measures are sought by municipal national courts no effective and binding interim remedies can be granted to the parties and third parties. The arbitrator once appointed is competent enough to grant interim measures and it can also decide about its jurisdiction based on doctrine of Kompetenz-Kompetenz. However, if before the appointment of arbitrator, the need of urgent interim measures arises then obviously parties have to go to the municipal national courts but this judicial intervention is not the intent of parties as they are seeking judicial minimalism. In such situations the urgent interim measures can be granted by emergency arbitrator. The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is silent about emergency arbitrator but Delhi and Bombay High Courts have given some pragmatic judgments, making the provision of emergency arbitrator, a reality. The real problem in emergency arbitrator is how one can grant interim relief even without being in existence i.e. when arbitrator itself is non est. ICC, SIAC and LCIA provide for emergency arbitrator. In this paper the author has tried to make an analytical and comparative overview of emergency arbitrator in Indian Perspective.


Author(s):  
Oda Hiroshi

This chapter discusses the 2015 Arbitral Reform. The arbitral reform, which started in 2011, culminated in two sets of laws adopted by Parliament and signed by the president on 25 December 2015. The package comprised the Law on Arbitration of the Russian Federation and the Law on the amendments to the Laws in relation to the adoption of the above law. The latter included amendments to the Law on Commercial Court Procedure and the Law on International Commercial Arbitration. On 27 December 2018, the Law on Arbitration was further amended. The power to grant license to perform functions of permanent arbitral institutions was shifted to the Ministry of Justice. One of the fundamental issues which were contested in the process of the reform was whether the existing regime of segregation of international and domestic arbitration should be abandoned altogether or should be maintained. With the strong opposition from experts of international commercial arbitration supported by the Codification Commission and the President’s Administration, the system of two separate laws, that is, the Law on Arbitration and the Law on International Commercial Arbitration, was maintained. However, organisational/institutional aspects of arbitration, including international arbitration, are now regulated by the Law on Arbitration.


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