Arbitration and third parties is a topic which, over and above its academic relevance, has important practical implications for parties in international arbitration proceedings. The issue of arbitration and third parties may concern situations where a party wishes to refer to arbitration another party that was not part of the main contract and therefore did […]
France Arbitration
The Annulment of International Arbitral Awards Rendered in France
The annulment of an arbitral award may be pursued by parties involved in an international arbitration conducted in France, allowing them to challenge the award’s validity through a dedicated annulment process. Parties can initiate the French annulment process exclusively against international arbitral awards rendered in France. They may not use this procedure against international arbitral […]
Document Production in International Arbitration
Document production is one of the most controversial yet essential steps in international arbitration. Since cases are generally decided based on documents rather than oral testimony, document production can be a powerful tool for discovering evidentiary material crucial to winning an arbitration.[1] It is not surprising that arbitral proceedings commonly include a document production phase. […]
French Court of Appeal Rules on Parties’ Waiver in ICC Arbitration
The French Court of Appeal has recently outlined the scope of parties’ waiver in arbitration. In Antrix Corp Ltd v. Devas Multimedia P. Ltd, the International Commercial Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal held that Antrix did not waive its right to rely on a procedural irregularity, raised before the ICC International Court of […]
Enforcement of a Foreign ICC Arbitration Award in France Despite Set-Aside Judgements in West Africa
On 11 January 2022, the Paris Court of Appeal agreed to enforce a contract-based ICC arbitration award, despite the final award being previously set aside by the domestic courts of the seat of arbitration, and the underlying contract also being annulled by a foreign court. While this result may be surprising in many jurisdictions, the […]
Revision of Arbitration Awards under French Law
Under French law, pursuant to the doctrine of functus officio, once the arbitral tribunal has rendered its award, it cannot re-examine it.[1] There is no possibility for the French courts to remit the matter to the arbitral tribunal in case an award is annulled. Accordingly, the parties can only start new arbitration proceedings on the […]
Demurrage Claims in International Arbitration
International arbitrations in the field of shipping and sales often include demurrage claims (“surestaries” in French) which constitute, using the expression of Professor Debattista, “the staple diet of shipping lawyers the world over”.[1] Although it is rarely defined in charterparties or sale contracts which usually provide for its rate only, the Baltic Code (2020) defines […]
Rome I, Rome II, Applicable Law and International Arbitration
The relevance of the Rome I and Rome II Regulations for determining the law applicable to the merits of an international arbitration is a hotly-debated issue. Within the European Union (“EU”), Regulation (EC) No. 593/2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (“Rome I”)[1] and Regulation (EC) No. 864/2007 on the law applicable to non-contractual […]
Does an Arbitration Clause Survive the Termination of a Contract?
An arbitration clause in a contract is generally regarded as an autonomous agreement that may survive the termination of the contract that contains it. This presumption is often referred as “separability” or the “doctrine of separability”, according to which an arbitration clause is a “separate contract” whose validity and existence are independent from the substantive […]
