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China Arbitration Developments*
The below is a summary of recent decisions impacting China arbitration.
Anti-monopoly disputes are not arbitrable in China
In August 2016, the Jiangsu Provincial Higher People’s Court held that anti-monopoly cases involve the public interest and therefore such disputes cannot be arbitrated between private parties. The court was hearing a case where the plaintiff had entered into a distribution ggreement with a manufacturer that contained an arbitration clause. The plaintiff sued the defendant in Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court accusing it of abuse of market dominance. Defendant alleged the court lacked jurisdiction as there was an arbitration agreement between the parties. The court not only rejected the jurisdiction objection but it also rejected the request for arbitration becuase the agreement designated more than one arbitral institute which made the arbitration agreement invalid.
The Jiangsu Provincial Higher Court affirmed the Intermediate Court’s ruling on appeal and listed the following three reasons why antimonopoly cases may not be arbitrated:
- Relevant laws and judicial interpretations expressly provide for civil litigation to resolve civil monopoly disputes.
- Public policy considerations favor litigation over arbitration.
- Anit-monopoly cases involve the public interest, third-party interests and consumer interests and therefore override the preference of the parties for private dispute resolution under the arbitration clause.
Failing to Specify The Arbitral Seat in An Arbitration Clause May Result in an Unenforceable Award:
In Wicor Holding A.G. v. Taizhou Haopu Investment Limited the Taizhou Intermediate People’s Court refused to enforce an ICC arbitration award because the arbitration clause in the Joint Venture Agreement was invalid for having failed to specify the arbitral body for the arbitration. The Joint Venture Agreement mandated that the parties’ disputes be arbitrated “in accordance with ICC mediation and arbitration rules“ but the Court found this did not clearly specify that the ICC be the arbitral body and without a clear choice for the seat of arbitration, the arbitration provision was deemed invalid. The Supreme People’s Court upheld this ruling and since the ICC award was improperly rendered on the basis that the arbitration agreement was valid, enforcing the award would contradict the social and public policy of China.
Editor’s Note: The clear lesson from this decision — and one we have many times emphasized on these pages, is that there is a right way and a wrong way to write an arbitration provision and you will pay the price if you write one incorrectly. We estimate that around half of the China contracts our China lawyers review or see contain arbitration provisions with readily identifiable errors.
SCIA Updates its Rules to Hear Investor-State Arbitrations.
The Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA) published updated rules which will enable it to hear investor-state disputes and to administer arbitrations under UNCITRAL rules. These updated rules went into effect in December 2016 and they make SCIA the first arbitral body in mainland China to administer investor-state disputes.
* This post was guest-written by Chris Campbell, a foreign legal consultant who graduated from Tsinghua University with an LLM in Chinese law and international arbitration. Chris has worked on various projects related to trade and International Arbitration in mainland China, Hong Kong, and East Timor.
We will be discussing the practical aspects of Chinese law and how it impacts business there. We will be telling you what works and what does not and what you as a businessperson can do to use the law to your advantage. Our aim is to assist businesses already in China or planning to go into China, not to break new ground in legal theory or policy.
Source: http://www.chinalawblog.com/2017/01/china-arbitration-developments.html
