In a striking new episode of the long-running Micula saga, the General Court of the CJEU has quashed the European Commission’s 2015 decision that Romania’s payment of the €178 million award rendered by an ICSID tribunal back in 2013 would constitute illegal State aid in the meaning of Article 107 of the TFEU. In its…
A recent court judgment confirms enforceability in Greece of a US judgment awarding USD 10 million in punitive damages The Judgment no. 722 of 2019 of the Single Member Civil Court of Piraeus paves the way to a more permissive approach as regards the enforceability of foreign court judgments and arbitral awards on punitive damages…
Several authors have already discussed the enforcement of arbitral awards in Russia (see for example the recent posts on the issue estoppel and public policy in recognition and enforcement proceedings, on the confusion relating to the material scope of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, and on the enforceability of…
“May” means “Shall” in Georgia! – this was the telephone message I received on January 18, 2018 from a colleague who had just been informed in the courtroom that the ICC arbitration clause he was relying upon was upheld by the Supreme Court of Georgia. I had been following this case [Supreme Court of Georgia…
On 12 June 2018, the Xiamen Intermediate People’s Court of PRC (“Court”), in Subway International B.V. v Xiamen Woguan Enterprise Management Co., Ltd, upheld an ICDR award made by sole arbitrator Charles J. Moxley Jr., Esq. This case raised some important questions in the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards in China, which have been previously covered…
Considering what the Court of Justice of the European Union (“ECJ”) said in its Judgment of 6 March 2018, under Case C‑284/16, widely known as the “Achmea judgment” (“Achmea”), one begs the question: How this should be perceived in practice? Because, when interpreting EU law not to be compatible with BIT-based dispute resolution, or vice…
Enforcement for some may be a chimera, an overrated factor in choosing the dispute resolution methods. Yet, efforts that have been invested in enforcement of judgments within the Hague Conference on Private International Law and of international commercial settlement agreements reached in mediation within UNCITRAL suggest that enforcement is not an entirely fictional animal. The…
“Enforcement” of arbitral awards is one of the main selling points of arbitration, with the perception being that nothing yet comes close to the New York Convention to enforce court judgments. The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements will assist when adopted by more countries. For now, the mere uttering of the incantation “enforceability”…
For the past few years, Brazil has gained recognition as an “arbitration-friendly” seat when it comes to the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. However, last year, in a groundbreaking decision, the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (in Portuguese, “Superior Tribunal de Justiça” or “STJ”) denied recognition of two US arbitral awards. Abengoa has appealed from…
To readers of this Blog, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is well known as an arbitration-friendly seat of arbitration in its own right. Developments there are fast apace and have more recently given rise to two challenge actions that, in turn, have raised considerations of arbitrability within the DIFC and the status of the…
The Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“Convention”), 1958 was adopted by Pakistan on 14 July 2005 through the Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Ordinance, 2005. This was re-promulgated in the years 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010 until it was finally enacted in 2011 (“2011 Act”). …
“We simply cannot go on with this utterly outmoded way of working…Endlessly re-keying in the same information; repeatedly printing and photocopying the same documents; moving files about, losing all or parts of them in the process… It is a heavy handed, duplicative, inefficient and costly way of doing our work and it is all about…
The recent decision by an intermediate New York appellate court in AlbaniaBEG Ambient Sh.p.k. v. Enel S.p.A. has sharply curtailed “a procedural loophole in Chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act” that some creditors have used to obtain indirect recognition of foreign arbitral awards in New York without having to establish personal jurisdiction over the…
In the past decade, the legal landscape in Brazil has changed significantly to better accommodate alternative dispute resolution methods, including mediation, conciliation, and arbitration. Brazil recently revised its Civil Procedure Code (Law 13.105/2015) and its arbitration law (Law 13.129/2015). It also enacted a mediation law (Law No. 13.140/2015). These major pieces of legislation contain provisions…
On 31 December 2017, Israel’s Supreme Court published an important precedential decision concerning enforcement procedures of ‘made in Israel’ commercial arbitral awards. In Request for Appeal 1739/17, Michael Flacks v. Stephan Bisk (in Hebrew), the Israeli Supreme Court denied a motion for service of process abroad in a petition to confirm an arbitration award issued…
The Question The question of enforcing arbitral awards which had been subject to set-aside proceedings at their seat is long-standing in academic debate and it continues to be of acute practical importance. Yet, and despite the unusual uniformity of legislative drafting on this topic, which we owe to the geographical pervasiveness of the New York…
The Prior Reporting System, established in August 1995 (see SPC Notice on Prior Reporting System (1995)), has been the most notable intervention of the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) in the area of arbitration since the PRC Arbitration Law (1994) was enacted. During the China Arbitration Summit held in Beijing on 20 September 2017, Justice Xuefeng…
When applicants seek recognition and enforcement (“R&E”) of foreign arbitral awards in PRC courts, a challenge often raised by respondents is the non-existence of the main contract between the parties, where the arbitration agreement is contained. Respondents contend that the contracts provided by the applicants as the basis for arbitration are not authentic or duly…
There have been a number of recent developments in Chinese judicial practice. These include the first known enforcement of foreign court judgments in China on the basis of reciprocity, as well as China’s signing of the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements (“Hague Convention”). While these developments are welcome, they are unlikely to ignite…
On 1 March 2017 the Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof) ruled on whether potential claims under the Austrian Commercial Agents Act (Handelsvertretergesetz) can be brought before an Austrian court even if the underlying agency agreement contains an arbitration clause and is governed by the laws of New York (OGH 1.3.2017, 5 Ob 72/16y). The judgment…
As arbitration gains prominence, legislative regimes governing domestic arbitration are fast liberalizing globally, and in some instances, like in South Korea, liberalizing faster than the regime governing international arbitration. The question we consider in this post is whether Contracting Parties to the New York Convention on the Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“New York Convention”)…
India has long been regarded as an unappealing centre for arbitration – be it as the seat of arbitration or as the place of final enforcement of the arbitral award. Indian judiciary is often quoted to be over interfering in matters of arbitration and enforcement. If fact could replace fiction, in the last decade, Shylock…
We make reference to the Kluwer Arbitration Blog post of 23 September 2016 by Sapna Jhangiani and Rosehana Amin, entitled ‘The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements: A Rival to the New York Convention and a ‘Game-Changer’ for International Disputes?’. That blog concluded that the Hague Convention was potentially a game changer. We respectfully…
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which covers the district courts of New York, Connecticut and Vermont, was recently called to decide the effect that a vacatur of an award in the seat of arbitration (in that case, Mexico) had in an ongoing enforcement proceeding in New York. The Court of Appeals held…
