International arbitration News, analytics and practice

14Jun/110

Costs of International Arbitration

“We invite all legal representatives, in-house counsel and arbitral tribunal members

to contribute to this major survey into costs in international arbitration. The survey

report and conference will provide an invaluable contribution to the debate on costs,

helping to generate proposals to restore speed and cost-effectiveness to the arbitration process.

This is essential if international arbitration is to maintain its position

as the commercial dispute resolution method of choice."

 “To make the survey effective, we need corporate counsel, party representatives, arbitrators and tribunal members to give us as much data as possible on arbitrations in which they have been involved.”

Doug Jones SC FCIArb, Vice President of CIArb

 

The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) has launched a major survey into the costs of international arbitration. The ‘Costs of Arbitration’ survey gathers data to inform parties, legal representatives and arbitrators about the overall costs of international commercial arbitration and how these are incurred at each stage.

CIArb 500x500 Costs of International Arbitration 

14May/110

Energy Charter Treaty: Remington Worldwide Limited vs Ukraine

On 28 April 2011 the Arbitral Tribunal of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce rejected most of the claims filed by Remington Worldwide Limited against Ukraine. The company accused Ukraine in violating the Energy Charter Treaty ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament, Verkhovna Rada in 1998.

16Mar/110

New rules of the protection of Ukraine’s state interests in international jurisdictional bodies

On March 15, 2011 the new version of the Order of protecting the rights and interests of Ukraine during the disputes, before the foreign jurisdictional authorities in cases involving a foreign entity and Ukraine came in force. The Order was approved by the Decree of the President of Ukraine.

14Mar/110

Piece! Ukraine is oriented to amicable settlement of arbitration cases

The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine that is authorized to defend state interests in foreign courts and arbitration tribunals, currently is in the negotiation process for a peaceful settlement of 7 disputes with foreign investors, stated the Minister of Justice Oleksandr Lavrynovych in an interview to "Investgazeta" (Monday, March 14, 2011).

The Minister explained that in the process of developing strategies of protection of Ukraine's interests in every case of a dispute with a foreign investor Ministry comes primarily from the possibility of a peaceful settlement.

9Feb/110

Securities industry arbitration: diametrically opposite approaches

Securities industry arbitration is rather young ADR instrument in Ukraine. Though the security industry is one of the spheres that particularly needs its own mechanism of resolution of specific disputes, arbitration in this market is still at the beginning of its development process. Apart from arbitration courts established by several banking associations there are specialized securities market arbitration courts created by self-regulatory organizations and business associations. Since there are no unified practice or resolving particular legal problems, participation of the specialist from the industry as arbitrators is usually highly recommended. The main reason of the involvement of industry arbitrators is that they know the rules and customs of the industry.

 new york stock exchange Securities industry arbitration: diametrically opposite approaches

15Dec/100

The ruling of the Supreme Court of Ukraine in RosUkrEnergo v. Naftogaz Ukrainy JSC case

As we announced earlier the Supreme Court of Ukraine ruled on enforcement under the New York Convention of a Swedish arbitral award rendered in RosUkrEnergo v. Naftogaz Ukrainy JSC case. Recently the SCC published the unofficial translation of the Court’s ruling. For those who are interested it is available here.

Posted by International Arbitration Team

logo Final point in RosUkrEnergo v. Naftogaz Ukrainy case

6Dec/100

ICSID announces its tribunal’s award in Global Trading Resource Corp. and Globex International, Inc. v. Ukraine case. The claim is commercial, not the investment one!

On December 1, 2010 the arbitration tribunal of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes announced its final award in Global Trading Resource Corp. and Globex International, Inc. V. Ukraine case.

24Nov/100

Final point in RosUkrEnergo v. Naftogaz Ukrainy case

On November 24, 2010 the Supreme Court of Ukraine adopted its final ruling on RosUkrEnergo v. Naftogaz Ukrainy JSC case. The Court supported the position of the court of first instance and the appeal court. As we informed in our previous posts that after the arbitral tribunal had issued its award in favor of RosUkrEnergo, the respective motion on its enforcement was filed to the Ukrainian court. The court of first instance satisfied the motion, however its ruling was appealed.

Now, after the cassation instance ruled about the enforcement, there is a chance to challenge the court ruling on the grounds of new circumstances revealed or on the extraordinary grounds. The chance is rather theoretical.

18Nov/100

RosUkrEnergo investigation commission of the Verkhovna Rada assumes that Naftogaz Ukrainy JSC lost the SCC case because of change of its legal position

On November 17, 2010 RosUkrEnergo investigation commission of the Verkhovna Rada presented draft report regarding the award of the arbitral tribunal under the rules of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

 The draft is subject to consideration of the core committee, thus it is not the final version yet. However, the draft contains assumptions and conclusions that may be interesting for our readers who follow the RosUkrEnergo case. After the arbitral tribunal had issued its awards of March 3, 2010 and June 8, 2010, they were recognized and permitted to be enforced according to the ruling of August 13, 2010 adopted by the Shevchenko District court of Kyiv. The ruling was then appealed. However, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. As we may say the state officials and bodies pay great attention to the outcomes of the case, which already lead to criminal proceedings instituted against former officials of customs authorities.

12Nov/100

Alpha Projektholding has won the investment dispute against Ukraine under ICSID rules

The Tribunal found that Ukraine conducted the expropriation of  Alpha Projektholding’s rights and interests in the 1998 and 1999 Joint Activities Agreements in violation of Article 4 of the the Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments between the Republic of Austria and Ukraine (Compensation for Expropriation) and denied fair and equitable to Claimant’s investments in violation of Article 2 of the UABIT (Protection and Promotion of Investments).

However, the Tribunal ruled that Ukraine had not violated Article 8 of the UABIT (Other Obligations) and the national treatment obligation in Article 3 of the UABIT with respect to claimant’s investments. The recognition of violation of the Ukrainian Foreign Investment Law was declined as well.

Ukraine has been ordered to pay USD 2,979,232 with additional interest accruing from July 1, 2004, at a rate of 9.11 percent compounded annually. As stated in the Award, if payment were made on December 31, 2010, total damages owing as of that date would be USD 5,250,782.

26Oct/100

If the case was lost in arbitration, let’s win in the Parliament

After the award in Rosukrenergo (we followed the case in our previous posts)  case was issued against the Ukrainian respondent, Ukrainian authorities and state officials announced several options of further actions, including filing an appeal against the award issues by the arbitral tribunal of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

Parliament If the case was lost in arbitration, let’s win in the Parliament

In addition to those measures the members of the Ukrainian Parliament invented another one.

21Oct/100

Welcome to our new Contributors: Konrad & Justich international law firm

Konrad & Justich's International Arbitration Practice Group is a highly specialised group of international arbitration lawyers, qualified in multiple jurisdictions, trained and skilled in all areas of dispute resolution and with particular expertise in handling high-profile arbitration cases before major arbitral institutions and ad-hoc panels.

KJ Welcome to our new Contributors: Konrad & Justich international law firm

20Oct/100

NO CONSUMER ARBITRATION IN UKRAINE

Let me start by stating that formally consumers’ rights in Ukraine are protected and even overprotected. They even may file claims which are free of court fees. However, recently new initiative appeared that was aimed at protection of consumers from “deprivation of rights to be protected by the state court system”. Today, October 20, the core committee of the Ukrainian Parliament gave its positive opinion to the bill that excludes the consumers’ disputes out of the competence of arbitration courts. The bill was registered with the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on September 9, 2010.

18Oct/100

Arbitration is better than litigation, but proven business partners are the best

Conducting business internationally it is extremely important to be sure about the bona fide status of your counterparty. This factor is significant for potential disputes and may be considered in two main aspects. First of all the unclear legal status of counterparty may hide certain problems which may cause disputes. Secondly, the outcome of any arbitration or litigation against that party with unclear legal status may be ineffective due to impossibility to enforce an award or court decision.

13Oct/100

New Age Attorneys

We continue a series of comments on this blog and we apologize to our subscribers and readers for a pause. The reason for the pause was the active involvement of the author of the blog to the process of establishing a new player in the legal services market that has occupied a niche of services in the field of international arbitration, trade and investment. I beg your welcome! Cai & Lenard Law firm!

 

cai New Age Attorneys 

The firm's lawyers shape the practice of arbitration in Ukraine. This blog will be updated by the analysis of these practices along with other useful materials. Cai & Lenard Website