• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.30
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• pp.91-120
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• 2006

An Arbitration agreement is one kind of contracts between two or more contracting parties; any possible disputes that arise concerning a contract will be settled by arbitration. Contracting parties who have made a valid arbitration agreement will submit a dispute for settlement to private persons(arbitrators) instead of to a court. Arbitration may depend upon the agreement of the private parties, but it is also a system which has been built on the law and which relies upon that law in order to make it effective both nationally and internationally. That is to say, arbitration is wholly dependent on the underlying support of the court. The complementarity of the courts and of the arbitrators is a well-established fact; they seek for the common purpose, the efficacy of international commercial arbitration. Most states' laws contain the provisions which have been set for the supportive role of the courts relating to arbitration; (1) the enforcement of the arbitration agreement(rulings on validity of the arbitration agreement), and the establishment of the tribunal at the beginning of the arbitration, (2) challenge of arbitrators, interim measures, and intervention during evidence in the middle of the arbitral proceedings, (3) filing of the award, challenge of the arbitral award, and recognition and enforcement of the arbitral award at the end of the arbitration. Most international instruments and national laws concerning arbitration believe that authoritative courts should play their power not to control and supervise arbitration but to support and develop the merits of arbitration at most. 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law also expressly limit the scope of court's intervention to assist arbitration, not to control it.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.33-58
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• 2015

Arbitration clauses or institutional arbitration rules rarely, if ever, specify the law applicable to the arbitration agreement. A wide range of laws may thus govern this question, such as the law at the place of arbitration, the law where the agreement or the award is enforced or the law of the main contract between the parties. It is also conceivable that international uniform law or soft law may play a role. Tribunals and courts seized with this question must consequently decide which of these various laws shall apply to verify the existence and validity of the arbitration agreement. This paper picks up on this controversially debated conflict of laws issue. At times, this debate is characterized by a strong divide between arbitration and international trade law practitioners. But are the different approaches really leading to diverging results in arbitral practice?

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.77
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• pp.43-67
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• 2018

Arbitration is one of alternative dispute resolution systems which settle a dispute by arbitrators(private persons) based on a contract between contracting parties without a judicial litigation system involved. As a valid arbitration agreement is an essential requirement for commencement of arbitration, the first thing to be determined is whether there is a valid arbitration agreement or not when a dispute is submitted. A consumer arbitration agreement usually exists as an arbitration clause in an adhesive contract between consumers and a seller. When consumers buy a product from a seller, they are requested to agree on a general terms and conditions which are unilaterally drafted by a seller in advance. These terms and conditions are not negotiable because it is an adhesive contract and consumers are placed in "take-it-or-leave-it" position. Therefore, even though there is an arbitration agreement between consumers and a seller, it has to be carefully considered whether it has a legal effect or not. In this respect, a court will examine if an arbitration agreement has procedural unconscionability and substantive unconscionability. Therefore, as U.S is a well-advanced and arbitration-friendly country, this paper analyzes four U.S cases to find out (i) what a court considers, (ii) how a court examines and interprets procedural and substantive unconscionability and (iii) if there has been a change in regard to a court's decision. By doing so, it will provide some suggestions and guidelines for a consumer arbitration in Korea.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.3-30
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• 2022

On 27 October the Supreme Court of UK handed down its much anticipated decision in Kabab-Ji SAL (Lebanon) v Kout Food Group (Kuwait) [2021] UKSC 48. The issues for the Supreme Court to decide were as follows: (1) which law governed the validity of the arbitration agreement; (2) if English law applied, whether, as a matter of English law, there was any real prospect that a court might find that KFG became a party to the arbitration agreement, and (3) whether, procedurally, the Court of Appeal was correct in giving summary judgment refusing recognition and enforcement the award, or whether there should have been a full rehearing of whether there was a valid and binding arbitration agreement for the purposes of the New York Convention and the AA 1996 (the 'procedural' issue) The decision in Kabab-Ji provides further reassuring clarity on how the governing law of the arbitration agreement is to be determined under English law where the governing law is not expressly stated in the arbitration agreement itself. The Supreme Court's reasoning is consistent with its earlier decision on the same issue, albeit in the context of enforcement pursuant to the New York Convention, rather than considering the arbitration agreement before an award is rendered. This paper presents some implications of Kabab-Ji case. Also, it seeks to provide a meaningful discussion and theories on the arbitration system in Korea.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.3-27
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• 2016

There is a need for disputes in sports to be settled by arbitration rather than a court ruling, taking the unique characteristics of sports into consideration. Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). A dispute resolution system is regarded as: an arbitrator is selected by the agreement between the parties, and a binding decision is made, which the parties obey, consequently resulting in a final resolution. To resolve a dispute upon arbitration, there must be an arbitration agreement upon the free will of the parties. In relation to the arbitration agreement, however, there are some cases in which sports organizations have an arbitration clause in the articles of association, regulations or player registration application that call for settling disputes by arbitration. In such cases, the validity of the arbitration agreement may create doubt whether or not this sort of arbitration has been made by mutual agreement. Consequently this is required to be legally examined. The activities of a sports organization are recognized as part of private autonomy, and they include even the rights that establish regulations or rules. Nonetheless, the powers that such sport organizations are able to establish are not allowed without limit. However, sports activities and autonomy shall be protected as themselves. Therefore, if we give priority to arbitration upon the independent arbitrator and fair process by establishing an independent arbitral organization in charge of sports disputes to handle the effective resolution of disputes and protect sports autonomy and ask for a court decision if one party disobeys the arbitration, or the sports arbitration prepositive principle, it seems helpful to resolve the unfairness of compulsory jurisdiction and the clause for sports arbitration and protect the player's right of choice and of claims for trial.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.93-114
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• 2003

The Federal Arbitration Act and the States Arbitration acts of the United States approve that the an arbitration clause should be construed broadly and the Courts interpreted it broadly without being curbed by the written meaning of clause itself. The Courts also divided the interpretation of arbitration clause from the interpretation of other clauses of contract to approve the validity of arbitration clause and further expanded the scope of arbitration. However, the Arbitration Act of Korea does not specify a general principle about how an arbitration clause should be interpreted. The Supreme Court did not have a case yet but the lower courts kept their posture that an arbitration clause should be clear by resulting narrow interpretation and should be written to the extent that it excludes the power of courts from jurisdiction. As a result, there would be cases that arbitration is not permitted although an arbitration clause exists. The parties intending arbitration are frustrated about how to draft an arbitration clause into their agreement. There were the cases that the parties which took the prevailing position attempted to delay dispute resolutions by dragging disputes into litigation even if they agreed to resolve through arbitration, on the basis that an arbitration clause was incomplete. Although the arbitration statutes of the United States cannot apply in Korea, the way of their approaches to the interpretation of arbitration clause can be taken into consideration in view of the globalization of arbitration.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.141-158
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• 2007

The purpose of this paper is to examine the validity or effectiveness of the Arbitration Clause such as Model Clause I, and to confirm how other issues such as arbitrable "investment", appointment of arbitrators and law governing the agreement be reflected in the agreement. However, the parties should be sure that the arbitration clause is valid if they have checked whether, for their particular situation, the ICSID Centre has jurisdiction. For the validity of the Arbitration Clause, first the host country and the country which the investor belong to must be "contracting states" to the ICSID Convention. Second, the specific consent to arbitrate must be expressed in writing in the investment contract or in a national investment law or in an investment protection treaty. The issue of "nationality" of an other contracting state is determined by the place of incorporation or the location of the head office. In case the parties have doubts about a valid consent to arbitrate, Art. 41 of the ICSID Convention provides, regarding ICSID jurisdiction, that the tribunal shall be the judge of its own competence. It follows that ICSID Arbitration has an autonomous and exclusive character. As a consequence, domestic courts may not interfere with the question of ICSID's jurisdiction, which is called as "rule of abstention".

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.221-241
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• 1998

Though the arbitration agreement is a means to resolve disputes autonomously in essence, the Principle of Parties Autonomy and the Principle of Free Contracting can not be applied infinitely without any limitations but subject to the Public Policy and the Compulsory Provisions as established by an interested country. Such principle of law is applied to international arbitration agreements as well, but their validity should be determined by different standards from those in domestic arbitration agreements, in consideration of their internationality. The essential effect of arbitration agreement is to exclude from the jurisdiction of State courts. Depending upon definition of the legal nature of arbitration agreement, the range and contents of the effect of such agreement will vary. Whether State courts can intervene in claims related to Compulsory Provisions is an issue at the level of legislation policy which can not be easily concluded. But, the applicability of Compulsory Provisions can not serve as an imperative ground to deny the eligibility of claims for arbitration, so far as such claims can be disposed of by the parties. On the other hand, it is reasonable to view the arbitration agreement as a substantive contract in its legal nature enabling the authority for dispute resolution to be delegated to arbitrator, so that the Principle of Parties Autonomy can be widely applied throughout the arbitration procedure as well as with other legal acts on private laws. With this, the parties can enjoy an arbitration award appropriate for characteristics of a specific arbitration agreement, thus resulting in facilitating the use of arbitration procedure for international trade activities. To conclude, the Public Policy and the Compulsory Provisions as limitations on arbitration agreement should be applied to such an extent that they can protect States basic moral faith and social order.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.43-69
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• 2022

In the case of the United States, which has the same provision as Article 10 of the Federal Arbitration Act, a contract may be exceptionally validated if the parties have clearly concluded the contract to expand the grounds for vacating awards in an arbitration agreement. It is possible that the parties create the grounds for vacating that is not stipulated in the statue by clear agreement. However, it remains the issues when this contract is valid. If we investigate the grounds for setting aside as discussed in this paper, in cases ① where an arbitrator failed to apply the substantive law expressly designated by the parties without a good reason; ② where there was a serious error in the application of the substantive law; ③ where an arbitrator decided under ex aequo et bono despite the parties explicitly designated the substantive law, the parties may bring an action for annulment of arbitral awards in court according to their agreement to expand the grounds for vacating the awards. It is important enough to change the rights and obligations of the parties for them whether or not the substantive law of the arbitration was applied. With Regard to the contract to expand the grounds for setting aside the awards in arbitration agreement, there are still issues how to handle the case where the parties have not designated the substantive law, and the validity of a contract to expand the grounds for vacating on reasons other than violation of law application, and relations with Article 5 of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, where the misapplication of the law does not stipulated as the grounds for refusal to recognize and enforce the foreign arbitral award, and so on.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.125-169
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• 2014

In France, arbitration, both domestic and international, has recently been subjected to a major reform. This article discusses the content of the 2011 reform and its aftermath, while putting into perspective the current arbitration act in South Korea, an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction that contemplates reforming its own law. The two legal systems are characterized by their concern for efficiency and rationalization of the arbitration proceedings, through the codification of essential principles previously established by case law and through the promotion of the independence of this ADR vis-$\grave{a}$-vis state courts. The efficiency consideration is strengthened at every stage of the proceedings: from the arbitration agreement often considered valid and rarely challenged, through the proceedings for annulment, recognition and enforcement of the award, up to the judicial assistance of the French supporting judge towards the actual arbitral proceedings. Finally, new concerns are emerging: the increase of transparency and the arbitrability of disputes in some uncertain fields of law.