On February 24, 2023, the Latvian Constitutional Court issued a long-awaited Judgement in case 2022-03-01 confirming that the current control mechanism over arbitration in Latvia is incomplete and unconstitutional. This means that the government will now be required to introduce a procedure for setting aside arbitral awards made by tribunals seated in Latvia. Background…
Latvia is an infamous unicorn in the field of arbitration because of its record-number of institutional arbitration courts. In November 2013, there were 214 arbitration courts in Latvia. Regretfully, this is not because we as a nation love arbitration that much. Liberal regulations have allowed any legal entity to establish an arbitration court which to…
Latvian courts annually enforce approximately 1000 arbitral awards. Just a few years ago this number was even higher – reaching 7000 requests in 2004 (statistics of the Court Information System available here) – since also consumer disputes could have been submitted to arbitration, as non-negotiated arbitration clauses were not presumed to be unfair and thus…
