A case study on the arbitration awards canceled by Korean Supreme Court

중재판정이 대법원에 의해 취소된 사례연구

Korea Supreme Court has cancelled four cases of thirty-nine Arbitral awards made by Korean Commercial Arbitration Board since Korea arbitration act was enacted in 1966. Three cases of them were cancelled by the reason of the arbitrator's disqualification in relation to impartiality or independence and the other to arbitration agreement enable to select the lawsuit or arbitration. When a person is approached in connection with his possible appointment as an arbitrator or has already been appointed as such, he shall without delay disclose all circumstances likely to give rise to justifiable doubts as to his impartiality or independence according to the one of the article 13 of Korean Arbitration Act. Upon being notified of the appointment as an arbitrator, each arbitrator shall immediately disclose in writing to the Secretariat any circumstances which might cause reasonable doubt about impartiality or independence. An arbitration agreement shall be made clearly and in writing not to appeal to the court or to be brought in the court. However most of the korean construction contracts have the arbitration agreement clause enable to appeal to the court or the arbitration on government official's advice. Many of these disputes are resolved by litigation after the precedent(Law case number : 2003da318) set by the Supreme Court on August 22, 2003 between the Korea(government) and the Korea Railroad or abandoned its attempt to arbitration. But each year, about four hundreds of arbitration business transactions were resolved arbitration, the voluntary submission of a dispute to an impartial person or persons for final and binding determination. Arbitration has proven to be an effective way to resolve these disputes privately, promptly, and economically.