• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.55-84
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• 2005

The arbitral award is the decision of the arbitrators on the dispute that had been submitted to them by the parties, either under the arbitration clause providing for the determination of future disputes or under submission of an existing controversy. The arbitral award has the same effect between the parties as a final and binding court judgment. The arbitration award shall acquire, as soon as it is given and delivered to each parties, the authority of res judicata in respect of the dispute it settles. The validity of an award is a condition precent for its recognition or enforcement. The validity of an award depends on the provisions of the arbitration agreement including any arbitration rules incorporated in it, and the law which is applicable to the arbitration proceedings. Such provisions usually address both the form and the content of the award. As the 'form', requires article 32 of Arbitration Act of Korea that an arbitral award should, at least, (1) be made in writing and be signed by all arbitrators. (2) state the reasons upon which it is based unless the parties have agreed that it should not, (3) state its date and place of arbitration. There are some further requirement which may have to be observed before an award which has been made by a tribunal can be enforced. (4) The duly authenticated award signed by the arbitrators shall be delivered to each of the parties and the original award shall be sent to and deposited with the competent court, accompanied by a document verifying such delivery. This rule can be interpreted as if the deposit of an arbitral award with the competent court is always required as a condition for its validity or as a preliminary to its enforcement in Korea. However, we must regard this rule which requires the deposit of an arbitral award with court, as rule of order, but not as condition of its validity. Because that the date on which the award is delivered to each party is important as it will generally determine the commencement of time limits for the making of any appeal which may be available. Furthermore, the party applying for recognition or enforcement merely has to supply the appropriate court with the duly authenticated original award or a duly certified copy thereof, not any document which proves that an the arbitral award is sent to and deposited with the competent court. In order to avoid some confusion which can be caused by its interpretation and application, the Article 32 (4) of Arbitration Act of Korea needs to be abolished or at least modified.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.3-24
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• 2014

The Arbitration Act of Korea entered into force on December 31, 1999. It was modeled after the UNCITRAL Model Arbitration Law to meet the goal of the internationalization of the arbitration system of South Korea mainly in terms of the System (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Act. In general, a hearing of arbitration is made up of an arbitrator, claimant, and respondent. This is accomplished in a single core. The advantages of arbitration are low cost and confidentiality. In addition, there is the participation of experts and rapidity with a single core agent. However, under the current Arbitration Act, there is no provision expressly relating to the qualifications of arbitrators. This should be accomplished by the arbitration act enforcement ordinance. Following specific details of the 'party' in conjunction with all the provisions of the Arbitration Act, Article 1 should be revised in a timely manner so that "conflict of private law" covers cases in which a dispute between the parties is desirable. In addition, in Article 3 the phrasing of "also dispute 'judicial'" should be revised to over disputes between parties. Furthermore, the provisions of Article 40 are described in the Supplement and so it is preferable to address Supplementary Delete. In addition, this study will analyze ADR in Japan and present a plan to establish a law to resolve disputes outside of court in that country. Therefore, the objective of this study is to assist in the study of legislating fundamental law for alternative dispute resolution. In spite of this, there are many in business and academia who would like to modify the arbitration system in South Korea to improve its function. There is much interest in accomplishing this,so proposals for legislation should continue to be made.In order to accomplish this, the arbitration systems of developed countries such as the United States can be used as a model. It can be seen that despite the idea that the parties involved engage in arbitration autonomously, many elements of the process from the selection of the arbitrator of the arbitral tribunal are specified in legislation and thus it is necessary to develop legislation that will allow arbitration to perform its intended function. Any given arbitral tribunal can be specialized, typically in a case an arbitrator who is an expert in the field is selected. This helps to avoid complaints concerning the results of the arbitration. In the case of international arbitration, however, this provision is often not employed and instead it is necessary to provide a Schedule and Supplement concerning international arbitration. Finally, the promotion of the enactment of the Arbitration Law Enforcement Ordinance must be a top priority in order to ensure proper implementation of the arbitration law.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.57-75
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• 2019

In investigating how set-off defenses matter in arbitration, one should take into account that it is not permitted against the parties' will for arbitrators to rule on the disputes that are not the subject of an arbitration agreement, unless otherwise agreed upon by the parties involved, because it is considered that the parties intend to solve only the disputes which are the subject of the agreement by arbitration. Also, one should keep in mind that the parties must settle the disputes that are the subject of an arbitration agreement by arbitration when they conclude the agreement, and it is not allowed against the parties' will to resolve the disputes in other ways. The parties may agree whether the respondent can request for arbitration on the counterclaim, which is his/her claim against the claimant, and whether the respondent can raise a plea for a set-off that his/her claim against the claimant is a counter obligation. Failing on such agreement, the respondent may submit a counterclaim when his/her claim and the claimant's claim are the subject of the same arbitration agreement. The arbitral tribunal may rule on the counter obligation when the arbitration agreement, which becomes the basis for the claimant' claim, has an effect on the counter obligation. Where the claimant fails to raise an objection even after he/she becomes aware that the respondent has requested for arbitration or has raised a plea for set-off by providing his/her claim which is not the subject of the arbitration agreement as a counterclaim or a counter obligation, the arbitral tribunal may rule on the respondent's claim against the claimant. On these occasions, the arbitral tribunal has to guarantee the parties an opportunity to defend themselves by pointing out those situations. It will meet the purposes of arbitration systems to rule out the jurisdiction of the courts when the plaintiff alleges the existence of the arbitration agreement, in case the respondent raises a plea for set-off based on his/her claim which is not the subject of the arbitration agreement in the litigation procedures. However, where the plaintiff fails to allege the existence and conducts pleading in the court with regard to the counter obligation, the court must not reject the respondent's set-off defense because of the existence of the agreement.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.29
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• pp.39-61
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• 2006

The governing law in international commercial arbitration may be divided into governing arbitration law and governing substantive law. The former governs the parties' arbitration agreement and the conduct of any subsequent arbitration. But the later governs the parties' substantive rights and obligations, which means the law that governs contract formation and performance, and the law to be applied by the arbitrator to the merits of the dispute. The purpose of this paper is to examine how to determine the substantive governing law when there is express choice or implied choice between parties. Moreover this author checked any restrictions on party autonomy and also any possibilities to deviate from the governing law. In case of express choice the sources of the law or rules of law might be the national law of one of the parties, the neutral law, the general principles of law or lex mercatoria according to the arbitration law selected by the arbitral tribunal. Some arbitration laws or rules empower the arbitrator to decide the case ex aequo et bono or to act as amiable compositions. If the governing law could be determined expressly or impliedly by the parties, the arbitral tribunal would make a selection. In this case the criteria for selecting a governing law are not exactly same from country to country. But failing any indication by the parties as to governing law, the arbitral tribunal should apply the rules of law, the law or the law under the rule of conflict that the arbitrators consider applicable, according to the governing arbitration law. Among the connecting factors offered by the conflict rules, (which means the factors that the arbitrators consider applicable), some legal systems give precedence to the formation of the contract, other system to the place of performance of the contract, and others to the closest connection or centre of gravity. But the Rome Convention, which unified the conflict rules of the contracting states, gives precedence to the law of the domicile of the party which has to effect the performance which is characteristic of the contract. Finally this author suggested the Choice of Law Clause which covers governing substantive law and governing arbitration law at the same time. Thus the UNIDROIT Principles as well as any national law may be included as a governing law in international arbitration. So when we make sales or service contract, we should take into consideration of the UNIDROIT Principles as a governing law or a supplement to the governing law.

• Strategy21
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• s.40
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• pp.131-143
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• 2016

On 12 July 2016, China's maritime claim to most of the South China Sea (SCS) based on the so-called nine-dash line was rejected by the Arbitral Tribunal, constituted under Annex VII to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) concerning issues in the South China Sea including the legality of the so-called "nine-dashed line", the status of certain maritime features and their corresponding maritime entitlements, together with the lawfulness of certain actions by China which the Philppines, in a case brought in 2013, alleged were violations. As having the Tribunal determined that China's claim had no legal grounds in UNCLOS, thus undermining China's claims, and establishing that China has no exclusive legal rights to control the area roughly the size of India. There are some major implications from the Tribunal's ruling in the Arbitration award. These include implications on: how to delimit the maritime boundary in disputed waters, how to promote maritime confidence-building measures, how to safeguard maritime safety and security, and how to promote the rule of law in the SCS. Since its application of UNCLOS in East Asia, it has been obvious that the only way to resolve maritime disputes in the region is to build strong maritime cooperative partnerships under the auspices of the rule of law.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.64
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• pp.99-128
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• 2014

Last year, Seoul International Dispute Resolution Center(SIDRC) was set up to facilitate and promote international arbitration in Korea. This study was focused on the revision of arbitration rules such as ICC, SIAC, HKIAC and JCAA. As a leading arbitration institution in the world, ICC has tried continuously to provide more efficient service to their client by adopting emergency arbitrator(EA) & multi party arbitration. Other three institutions also introduced almost same mechanism to compete each other. These two new system is very innovative in international arbitration. First of all, EA was designed to provide interim measure service to preserve or protect parties' right before the constitution of arbitral tribunal. Arbitration institutions and arbitral tribunals should be careful to decide these requests are legitimate or not because too hasty approval on joinder or consolidation without full consideration such as parties' intention or argument may issue another serious problem - setting aside an award rendered after joined or consolidated.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.85-108
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• 2023

In international commercial arbitrations that arise from an international commercial contract, arbitral tribunals ruling on the merits of the arbitration apply the law governing the contract. The parties to contract are free to designate the law under the principle of parties autonomy. This paper examines this principle under the Korean Arbitration Act, and makes some legislative suggestions. For this purpose, this paper first discusses what is the scope of matters covered by the law governing the contract, what are the rules of conflict-of-laws for determining the law governing the contract, and what happens when the arbitral tribunal incorrectly applies the law governing the contract? Then, this paper further goes to examine issues such as the form of choice-of-law agreement, the explicit or implicit choice of law, the parties' ability to choose the rules of law including lex mercatoria, the change of choice-of-law agreement, the independence of choice-of-law clause.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.3-22
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• 2008

The purpose of this article is to make research on the meaning and function of the place of arbitration for, the international commercial arbitration. For this purpose is to analyse regal issue the meaning and function of the place of arbitration on the international commercial arbitration relating to the arbitration law and the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. In this Article is dealt with Art. 2 para. 1 of the Korean Arbitration Act(KAA). The KAA corresponds with the connection to the place of arbitration, the internationally prevailing 'the principle of territoriality'. The place of arbitration is therefore great practical relevance, as there is not only the existing legal supplements on the arbitration procedure applies, but also in the state courts rule for the support and control of the tribunal are responsible. In this context, this article first intends the importance of the place of arbitration for determination of the applicable procedural law. Secondly, this article intends the importance of the place of arbitration for the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards under "the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards(New York Convention)". In conclusion, this article stresses, that the place of arbitration setting under Article 21 para. 1 KAA determine not only the applicable arbitration law, but also the jurisdiction of state courts in lawsuit for repeal of arbitration and qualification as a domestic or foreign arbitration award.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.117-136
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• 2007

Currently, it is the general trend that the party's autonomy principle is applicable in determining the applicable law for the international private law and the international commercial arbitration. The purpose of this article is to make research on the party's autonomy principle for the international commercial arbitral awards. For this purpose ist to analyse regal issue the applicability of the lex mercatoria and the possibility of $d\acute{e}pe\c{c}age$ relating to the party autonomy. In this Article ist dealt with Art. 29 para. 1 of the Korean Arbitration Act in comparison with Art. 28 para. 1 UNCITRAL Model Law and Art. 1051 para. 1 of the German Code of Civil Procedure. The Art. 28 para. 1 UNCITRAL Model Law and Art. 1051 para. 1 of the German Code of Civil Procedure provides equally. "The arbitral tribunal shall decide the dispute in accordence with such 'rules of law' as chosen by the parties as applicable to the substance of the dispute. Any designation of the law or legal system of a given State shall be construed, unless otherwise expressed, as directly referring to the substantive law of that State and not to its conflict of laws rules." The term 'rule of law' used to describe the applicability of the lex mercatoria and the possibility $d\acute{e}pe\c{c}age$. Unlike Art. 28 para. 1 UNCITRAL Model Law and Art. 1051 para.1 of the German Code of Civil Procedure. Act, Art. 29(1) of the Korean Arbitration Act provides that the arbitral tribunal shall decide the dispute in accordence with the 'law' chosen by the parties as applicable to the substance of the dispute. However the majority view in Korea takes the position that the term 'law' should be interpreted broadly so as to encompass 'rules of law' at UNCITRAL Model Law and the German Code of Civil Procedure.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.33-55
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• 2007

Parties to national or international disputes use arbitration because they think it is faster than litigation or affords privacy. But it is very important for the parties that the decision of arbitrators is made impartially and independently. For the parties to accept the outcome of an arbitration, it is essential that the final outcome be the result of an impartial process, especially because arbitration is a form of adjudication, albeit a private one. The success of arbitration resides in the conduct of arbitrators. The more independent and impartial arbitrators are, the more trustworthy arbitration will be. Just as court procedures allow for the recusal of judges under certain circumstances, the arbitral process provides means to remove arbitrators from a tribunal if arbitrator can no longer be considered impartial or independent. This is blown as the disqualification or challenge of arbitrators. An arbitrator can also be challenged when he or she does not fulfill the contactually agreed and stipulated qualifications required by the arbitral agreement. An arbitrator's inability to act impartially could give rise to a challenge to the arbitrator, and even to the award. However, deciding whether an interest or relationship could give rise to an apprehension of bias is a difficult issue for every arbitrator. The standard of arbitrator's impartiality and independence is not commensurable to that of judge, because the parties are permitted considerable autonomy in selecting arbitrators. Particularly it may be expected for the party-appointed arbitrator to act as the advocate of the party in the deliberations of the tribunal. Doubts that could give rise to a challenge to the arbitrator should be justifiable. That is the case if a reasonable, informed third party would conclude that the arbitrator's decision making might be influenced by factors other than evidence presented by the parties. Consequently, for example, the mere fact that an arbitrator was to work in the same firm as one of the parties' counsel, this could not automatically be considered as grounds for challenge for lack of impartiality.