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 […]
France Arbitration
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 […]
Aceris Law’s Client Succeeds in ICC Arbitration under French Law in the Aviation Industry
Aceris Law is pleased to announce that it has assisted another client in winning another ICC arbitration, this time in the aviation industry. While identifying details of the award remain confidential, the dispute, which was subject to French law, concerned remuneration of the work of a third-party consultant who had assisted in the successful sale […]
COVID-19 and Construction Disputes: Claims for Time and Money
The spread of COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, which was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020, has had a significant, in some cases disastrous, impact on virtually all areas of business globally. The construction industry is no exception. With a number of countries declaring a state of emergency […]
Arbitration in France: 2020
William Kirtley and Zuzana Vysudilova of Aceris Law have published the 2020 Lexology: Getting the Deal Through Arbitration guide to Arbitration in France for 2020. The guide discusses recent French jurisprudence concerning arbitration, as well as issues that are frequently encountered, and may be downloaded here. France William Kirtley and Zuzana Vysudilova Aceris Law LLC […]
COVID-19, Force Majeure and Arbitration
It seems certain that businesses will be preoccupied by COVID-19, force majeure and arbitration (or litigation) over the coming year. The present ability of businesses to fulfill their contractual obligations has been significantly impacted by the rapid spread of the new coronavirus, so-called COVID-19, which was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization […]







