William Kirtley and Zuzana Vysudilova have published a new article on violations of international public policy under French law, in light of the Paris Court of Appeal’s test in the case Société MK Group c/ S.A.R.L. Onix et Société Financial Initiative. Published by LexisNexis UK, the article discusses the test prior to 2014, when French courts required a violation of international public policy to be ‘flagrant, effective and concrete‘ with the new test, which merely requires a violation of international public policy to be ‘manifest, effective and concrete’.

In practice, while the ‘manifest‘ criterion still ensures that it will be difficult to overturn an arbitration award in France on the basis of international public policy, the abandonment of the ‘flagrancy‘ criterion does increase the possibility of the French Court of Appeals overturning an arbitration award when the evidence favours such an outcome.