• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.79-103
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• 2014

In light of increasing international trade in recent years, international arbitration has been more widely used by international parties to resolve their conflicts. Thus, the need for reliable and effective enforcement of foreign arbitral awards has amplified. To facilitate the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, the New York Convention lists grounds for the refusal of recognition and enforcement in Article V. This paper examines prominent U.S. case law on Article V(1)(b), which is put in place to ensure that arbitration proceedings are conducted properly in accordance with due process requirements: proper notice to parties and an opportunity to a fundamentally fair hearing. This examination of case law conveys that U.S. courts refuse to enforce foreign arbitral awards pursuant to Article V(1)(b) only when due process rights of the party against whom the award is to be enforced are clearly violated by the arbitral tribunal. This paper also reveals that U.S. courts mainly defer to arbitral tribunals' discretion, especially as to evidentiary matters. Therefore, it is predicted that U.S. courts will likely continue to narrowly construe the grounds in Article V to facilitate reliable and effective enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the U.S.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.113-137
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• 2005

In the provisions of 'the Arbitration Law of China, there are special provisions for international arbitration. When a court refuses the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards or cancel the domestic awards relating to international arbitration, they have to adopt the provisions of 'Chinese Civil Procedure Law'. These provisions are the same as the provisions of Korean Civil Procedure Law concerning the reasons of renewal. In the Korean Arbitration Act, those provisions disappeared when it was revised on December 31, 1999. Among the characteristics of the Chinese arbitration system, a serious question is that it provides only institutional arbitration and there is no ad-hoc arbitration in the Chinese Arbitration Law. On the other hand, when the parties appoint three arbitrators according to their agreement, the parties appoint the third arbitrator by mutual agreement and when they fail to agree, the Arbitration Committee appoints the third arbitrator. In practice, as the parties hardly agree on the third arbitrator or sole arbitrator, the Committee usually appoints them. And appointing an arbitrator from out of their panel of arbitrators is permitted these days only under examination by the Arbitration Committee in accordance with the arbitration rules of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, Other arbitration committees except the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission are still prohibited from making appointments from out of their panel of arbitrators. Accordingly, arbitration in China cannot be predicted and poses a question about legal stability as party autonomy is restricted in the appointment of arbitrators and arbitral procedure. Such being the case it is strongly recommended to select Korea as the place of arbitration in transactions with China. However it is better to arbitrate than to file a law suit in China.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.67-94
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• 2020

This paper examines the current enforcement regime of Korea and provides an overview of the same with focus on the changes before and after the 2016 revision of the Korean Arbitration Act. It briefly studies the pro-arbitration bias of the New York Convention, as well as the Korean judiciary's stance on the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Some of the substantial issues discussed in the paper include the major procedural changes brought about by the 2016 amendment with respect to the enforcement of arbitral awards. The paper also discusses the rare instances where the Korean judiciary refused to recognize or enforce an arbitral award, and the reasoning behind the refusal. The paper discusses and analyzes four court judgments that reflect the Korean judiciary's position on the enforcement of foreign and domestic arbitral awards in Korea. It focuses on the NDS v. KT Skylife case, where the court of first instance refused the enforcement on grounds that the relief granted by the arbitral tribunal was not specific enough for enforcement. Ultimately, the appellate court, although agreeing on the specificity requirement, reversed the ruling and granted an enforcement judgment on grounds that the application for enforcement had the legal interest to request an enforcement judgment.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.107-132
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• 2019

The arbitration procedure, which is a private trial, does not have a separate enforcement agency. Therefore, unless a party consents to the arbitration award and voluntarily fulfills the award, its execution is accomplished through the implementation of the national court. In particular, the decision in the foreign arbitration procedure will be refused or rejected for the arbitration award in case the proceedings of the law and procedure on which the judgment is based are caused by inconsistency with the domestic law or procedural defect. However, all foreign arbitration awards generally do not have to go through the approval process, and it will come into force with the arbitration award. In the case of Germany in the revision of the German Civil Procedure Act of 1996, the main provisions of the New York Convention concerning the ratification and enforcement of arbitration proceedings are reflected. Germany provides for the arbitration procedures in the arbitration proceedings of Book 10 of the Civil Procedure Act. Particularly, with Article 1061 in Book 10 Section 8 below, the approval and enforcement of foreign arbitrators shall be governed. Article 1061 has been referred to as "The New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Jurisdictions," Article 5 (1). The main reasons for approval and enforcement rejection are: (1) Reason for the acceptance or refusal of enforcement by request of the parties: Reason for failure of subjective arbitration ability, invalidation of arbitration agreement, collapse of attack or defense method, dispute not included in arbitration agreement, (2) Reasons for the approval and enforcement of arbitration considered by the competent authority of the arbitrator: violation of objective arbitration ability, violation of public order, but not based on the default of German statute.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.25-46
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• 2010

In spite of great interest and recent innovation of the legislative system in the Arbitration and other Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) system, In Japan there have been only a few case in which International commercial dispute was settled through the Arbitration compared to other countries. However, we can easily expect that foreign arbitral awards which need to be recognized and enforced in Japan will gradually increase and this makes it very important for us to review the Japanese legislative system regarding recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. In this paper, I focused on the relations between applicable laws(including convention) regarding recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Japan and some issues concerning refusal of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Japan is a member state of several multilateral conventions concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards including the New York Convention of 1958 and at least 20 bilateral agreements which include provisions in relate to the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards. Therefore there are some legal issues about the priority application between multilateral and bilateral agreements in relate to Article 7(1) of the New York Convention. In Japan, as I mentioned in this paper, there are incoherent opinions concerning this issue. To solve it substantially it would seem appropriate to build up concrete and explicit provisions concerning the application of priority between multilateral and bilateral agreements. On the other hand, in relate to the application between the New York Convention and National Law, it is necessary to take general approach regarding the priority application between Convention (Treaty) and National Law, considering the national application of conventions under the Constitutional System of each country. Among the grounds for non-recognition/enforcement, there are the ones that are decided under the law of the requested country, for instance, arbitrability and public policy. It would therefore be possible that some foreign arbitral awards would not be recognized in Japan especially relating to the arbitrability because its scope in Japan is not so large. Regarding the enforcement of awards annulled in their place of origin, some positive opinions in recent Japanese legal discussions, say that annulled awards should be enforced as a counter strategy of developed countries and judiciary discretion of the requested country would be needed. As mentioned in this paper, the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards is closely related to judicial policy of the requested country as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgment is. Even though there existed uniform rules on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards like the New York convention, each country has different internal legal status of conventions under its own Constitutional System and tends to interpret the provisions based in its own profit. Therefore, it is necessary to review, in the light of conflict of laws, the national legislative system including legal status of conventions of the requested countries concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.27-50
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• 2024

This paper examines issues concerning conflicts between arbitral awards and public interests, particularly with respect to economic sanctions. Sanctions have been widely used by political entities, such as States and organizations, as means to promote public interests and to resolve cross-border disputes. In particular, economic sanctions have been increasingly more visible in recent years due to the accelerating fragmentation of the international communities, and their magnitude and range of the impacts have grown accordingly. For example, the U.S. and the EU have imposed economic sanctions on Russia and related persons in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. recently re-introduced a comprehensive economic sanction on Iran. One of the notable impacts of the sanctions, particularly economic sanctions, is that on international arbitration. Sanctions are essentially built on the notion of the protection of public interests, and public interests are some of the few grounds upon which recognition and enforceability or arbitral awards may be rejected. However, jurisprudence on such conflict between sanctions and arbitral awards have not been sufficiently addressed in Korea because court case and administrative decision records on this conflict have not been sufficiently accumulated. In this regard, this paper begins with offering a survey of the concept of public interests, economic and trade sanctions, arbitral awards and their enforceability, and the relationships between them. It then examines the mechanism upon which public interests, trade and economic sanctions may lead certain arbitral awards unenforceable. Next, the paper suggests judiciaries' balanced approach toward the public interests protected by trade and economic sanctions and the predictability and fairness in the enforcement of arbitral awards. Finally, this paper concludes with the methods of the implementation of such balanced approach.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.115-136
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• 2011

In the past, Chinese arbitral system and Chinese arbitral associations were avoided by international society due to the cases which Chinese court rejected the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards based on rural protection. Especially Chinese court adjudicated to reject the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards by interpreting public policy broadly. The abuse of public policy by court threats the existence of commercial arbitration system. Under this awareness, the author figured out Chinese court shows what kind of attitude about public policy of Chinese court in the present through analyzing the cases about rejection of enforcement in Chinese arbitral awards in order to analyze whether Chinese court still maintain the negative attitude like past or there exist changes with public policy which is one of the rejection reasons of recognition and enforcement in foreign arbitral awards as the central figure. Chinese court behaved in an uncooperative attitude about arbitral awards like that it reached a verdict to reject the enforcement of arbitral awards by reason of violation in public policy about several foreign arbitral awards at the beginning stage of establishing arbitration law. However, the situation of abuse in public policy was improved a lot by Chinese prime court which enforces pre-inspection system about judgment of rejection of enforcement in arbitral awards. So, there is no case about rejecting the approval and enforcement of arbitral awards by reason of violation in public policy by Chinese court except Yongning Co. case. Moreover, Chinese court got the trust and support from other countries through reinforcement of applied standard. However, Chinese court had been expressed concern from international society because they highly applied public policy and rejected to enforce arbitral awards in the recent case of Yongning Co.. Therefore, this study examined whether it is appropriate to apply public policy of Chinese court in the case of Yongning Co., and then I concluded that. Although Yongning Co. case is the first case which Chinese prime court agrees with public policy by reason of rejection of approval and enforcement in foreign arbitral awards, in my opinion, it doesn't mean that Chinese court has fundamental change in basic attitude and position about the approval and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Chinese court keeps the cautious uses of public policy in legal judgment of foreign arbitral awards and it looks like implementing the obligation in regulation of New York Convention sincerely.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.59-84
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• 2017

The effects of an arbitration agreement depend on the legislative policy of the nation where arbitral awards are made and where awards are worked out in the private procedures. According to the main body of Article 35 of the Korean Arbitration Act, arbitral awards have the same effects on the parties as the final and conclusive judgment of the court. This is only possible if the awards are formed by satisfying all the legal requirements, have gone into effect, and have become final and conclusive. It is for the legal stability and the effectiveness of the settlement of disputes that the Act grants arbitral awards. While investigating the effects of an arbitral award, the character of the arbitration in which the party's autonomy applies should be considered, along with the substance of the disputes which parties intend to resolve by an arbitration agreement. The proviso of Article 35, which was added in the 2016 Act, says that the main body of the Article shall not apply if recognition or enforcement of arbitral awards is refused under Article 38. Two stances have been proposed in interpreting the proviso. One of them is that there are grounds for refusing the recognition and enforcement of the awards. The other one is that the ruling of the dismissal of a request for enforcement has been final and conclusive. According to the former, it is really unexplained as to its relations with the action for setting aside arbitral awards to court and the distinction between nullity and revocation, and so on. Therefore, its meaning must be comprehended on the basis of the latter so that the current Act system with revocation litigation could be kept. The procedures of setting aside, recognizing, and enforcing arbitral awards are independent of one another under the Act. It is apprehended that the duplicate regulations may lead to the concurrence or contradiction of a court's judgment and ruling. Thus, we need to take proper measures against the negative sides by interfacing and conciliating these proceedings.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.26-46
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• 2000

International arbitration has been recognized as an effective dispute resolution method. Among the arbitration institutions, the ICC(International Chamber of Commerce) international court of arbitration is one of the most well-known and frequently chosen organizations to which international claimants have resorted, when they were confronted with international disputes. In this paper, costs in the ICC arbitration are compared with those in the KCAB(Korean Commercial Arbitration Board) arbitration. seeking efficient ways to reduce the costs while maximizing the quality of arbitral awards. Three main points about costs in the ICC arbitration and the KCAB arbitration are discussed and analysed, First, the cost structures are analysed and decomposed into manageable units. Second, the cost allocation is discussed to clarify its proportional responsibility among the arbitration parties. Third, how advances in arbitration costs are conducted is examined to explore a well established procedure of arbitration. In conclusion, the KCAB arbitration procedure has been found faster and cheaper than the ICC arbitration procedure in terms of time and costs, respectively. However, it can be cautiously suggested that the quality of arbitral awards made by the KCAB is not necessarily higher than that made by the ICC.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.121-150
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• 2006

Under the New York Convention, parties can petition the courts of the United States to confirm foreign arbitral awards. Although there is no definition in the Convention for 'non-domestic' awards, in the United States, federal and state courts read the Convention broadly and interpret this as permitting the enforcing authority to supply its own definition of 'non-domestic' in conformity with its own domestic law. There are a number of federal cases on this point. The court preferred this broad construction of 'non-domestic' awards because it comported with the intended purpose of the Convention, which was entered into to encourage the recognition and enforcement of international arbitral awards. This means that in applying the New York Convention, U.S. courts have responded to the underlying spirit rather than the technical letter of the Convention. In brief, the New York Convention has much broader application in the United States. It is applicable not only to awards rendered outside of the United States, but also to non-domestic awards rendered within United States. As this article suggests, the general attitude towards foreign awards is more pro-enforcement in the United States, whether the award is rendered in favor of the American party or in favor of the foreign party.