• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.225-261
• /
• 2005

Under Article IV of the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention), in order to obtain the recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award, a party applying for recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award shall supply (a) the duly authenticated original award or a duly certified copy thereof and (b) the original arbitration agreement or a duly certified copy thereof. In addition, if the arbitral award or arbitration agreement is not made in an official language of the country in which the award is relied upon, the party applying for recognition and enforcement of the award shall produce a translation of these documents into such language, and the translation shall be certified by an official or sworn translator or by a diplomatic or consular agent. In a case where a Vietnamese company which had obtained a favorable arbitral award in Vietnam applied for recognition and enforcement of a Vietnamese arbitral award before a Korean court, the recent Korean Supreme Court Judgment (Docket No. 2004 Da 20180. 'Judgment') rendered on December 12, 2004 has alleviated the document requirements as follows : The Judgment held that (i) the party applying for recognition andenforcement of a foreign arbitral award does not have to strictly comply with the document requirements when the other party does not dispute the existence and the content of the arbitral award and the arbitration agreement and that (ii) in case the translation submitted to the court does not satisfy the requirement of Article 4, the court does not have to dismiss the case on the ground that the party applying for recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award has failed to comply with the translation requirement under Article 4, and instead may supplement the documents by obtaining an accurate Korean translation from an expert translator at the expense of the party applying for recognition and enforcement of the foreign arbitral award. In this regard, the author fully supports the view of the Judgment. Finally, the Judgment held that, even though the existence of a written arbitration agreement was not disputed at the arbitration, there was no written arbitration agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant and wenton to repeal the judgment of the second instance which admitted the existence of a written arbitration agreement between the parties. In this regard, the author does not share the view of the Judgment. The author believes that considering the trend of alleviating the formality requirement of arbitration agreements under Article 2 of the New York Convention, the Supreme Court could have concluded that there was a written arbitration agreement because the defendant participated in thearbitration proceedings in Vietnam without disputing the formality requirement of the arbitration agreement. Or the Supreme Court should have taken the view that the defendant was no longer permitted to dispute the formality requirement of the arbitration agreement because otherwise it would be clearly against the doctrine of estoppel.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.141-164
• /
• 2013

The current Korean Arbitration Act (KAA) ${\S}37(2)$ requires that a formal copy of an arbitral award or a duly certified copy thereof and the original arbitration agreement or a duly certified copy thereof be produced for the recognition and enforcement of a arbitral award. But as the KAA provides that the recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award to which the New York Convention applies shall be granted in accordance with the Convention, the duly authenticated original award should be produced instead of a formal copy in that case. The provision on the documents to produce for the recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award is set to establish a reasonable and transparent standard and to facilitate the recognition and enforcement of awards by prohibiting parochial refusal of the recognition and enforcement on the grounds of formalities. Therefore it is necessary to simplify those documents according to the internationally acknowledged standard. It would be desirable to amend KAA ${\S}37(2)$ to require only "the original arbitral award or a copy thereof" without authentication or certification and a translation into Korean without any condition, adopting the 2006 amendment to the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.49-70
• /
• 2015

There are three categories of arbitration - domestic arbitration, foreign-related arbitration and foreign arbitration. Although the meaning of foreign arbitration and International Commercial Arbitration is different, they are used to mean the same in practice. In fact, there is significant controversy about the meaning of non-domestic arbitration because it is too difficult to distinguish between non-domestic arbitration and domestic arbitration. In the Chinese arbitration system, there are two main laws,Chinese Arbitration Law and Chinese Civil Procedure Law. Chinese Arbitration Law regulates the internal matters, while Chinese Civil Procedure Law regulates the external legal regulations. After the 2012 revised Chinese Civil Procedure Law, a number of laws and regulations have been revised, and almost every Arbitrations Rules have been revised, and will be in effect in 2015. Depending on the nationality of arbitration, the applicable laws will be different. The nationality of arbitration is so important that this paper will pay more attention to it. Although the case in China has no precedent effect, it is so important to the parties that this paper will address it. This paper will analyze the process and the cases of the recognition and enforcement of the award system in China.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.71-100
• /
• 2007

To promote the way of resolving the increasing disputes regarding international intellectual property by arbitration, we should overcome uncertainty thwarting the dispute resolution; i.e., whether a dispute regarding intellectual property would be an arbitrable subject, whether the arbitration agreement would be valid and enforceable, and whether the arbitral award could be recognized and enforced in a foreign country. This article is intended to seek how to promote and facilitate the resolution of international disputes regarding intellectual property by arbitration. This article in Chapter II will examine the characteristics of the IP disputes first. Chapter III of this article will study arbitrability of IP disputes. Then, Chapter IV will discuss the requirements, validity, and effectiveness of arbitration agreement of international IP disputes. The author will discuss the procedure of arbitration of the international IP disputes in Chapter V, and finally the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards thereon in Chapter VI. Due to the so called 'territoriality principle' in intellectual property, the international disputes thereof confront numerous procedural setback, e.g., jurisdiction, conflict of laws, the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments or awards. To overcome such setbacks, I propose resolution of international IP disputes by one-step arbitration procedure through widely recognizing the arbitrability of IP disputes, and utilizing unnational nature of arbitration. In addition, I propose to set up the principles as to arbitration of the international IP disputes as the American Law Institute has formulated the principles for International Intellectual Property Litigations. By setting up these principles, I am certain it will be helpful to just and prompt resolution of international IP disputes which occur more frequently these days.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.121-150
• /
• 2006

Under the New York Convention, parties can petition the courts of the United States to confirm foreign arbitral awards. Although there is no definition in the Convention for 'non-domestic' awards, in the United States, federal and state courts read the Convention broadly and interpret this as permitting the enforcing authority to supply its own definition of 'non-domestic' in conformity with its own domestic law. There are a number of federal cases on this point. The court preferred this broad construction of 'non-domestic' awards because it comported with the intended purpose of the Convention, which was entered into to encourage the recognition and enforcement of international arbitral awards. This means that in applying the New York Convention, U.S. courts have responded to the underlying spirit rather than the technical letter of the Convention. In brief, the New York Convention has much broader application in the United States. It is applicable not only to awards rendered outside of the United States, but also to non-domestic awards rendered within United States. As this article suggests, the general attitude towards foreign awards is more pro-enforcement in the United States, whether the award is rendered in favor of the American party or in favor of the foreign party.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.357-369
• /
• 2006

All over the country tries to clarify the content of 'Public Policy' in recognition and implementation of Foreign Arbitral Awards : it makes comments of the international consensus of Geneva Convention(1927), New York Convention(1958) and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Policy, and it takes a general view of domestic laws how they deal with Public policy and Foreign Arbitral Awards. Foreign Arbitral Awards should be appropriately respected and implementation by the courts of countries encourage parties in a legal procedure to refuse enforcement by invoking "Public Policy." In order to cope with such invocations, the purport of the above recommendation on Foreign Arbitral Awards should be internationally recognized and the exceptional circumstances should be restricted unless the International Court of Arbitral Awards is not established a Dr. Holtzmann/Schwebel brought forward. In this paper suggests the list of the exceptional circumstances. Korean Arbitration Law stipulates as the Civil proceeding Law did, "good morals and the social order of the Republic of Korea" as a ground for refusing enforcement of Arbitral Awards. Studies on counteraction against invocations of Public Policy to refuse enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards should be developed.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.26 no.4
• /
• pp.3-41
• /
• 2016

This paper reviews the problems on the arbitral awards enforcement in the 2016 Korean Arbitration Act. In order to get easy and rapid enforcement of the arbitral awards, the new arbitration act changed the enforcement procedure from an enforcement judgement procedure to an enforcement decision procedure. However, like the old arbitration act, the new act is still not arbitration friendly. First of all, there are various problems in the new act because it does not approve that an arbitral award can be a schuldtitel (title of enforcement) of which the arbitral award can be enforced. In this paper, several problems of the new act are discussed: effect of arbitral award, approval to res judicata of enforcement decision, different trial process and result for same ground, possibility of abuse of litigation for setting aside arbitral awards and delay of enforcement caused by setting aside, infringement of arbitration customer's right to be informed, and non-internationality of enforcement of interim measures of protection, inter alia. The new arbitration act added a proviso on article 35 (Effect of Arbitral Awards). According to article 35 of the old arbitration act, arbitral awards shall have the same effect on the parties as the final and conclusive judgement of the court. The proviso of article 35 in the new act can be interpret two ways: if arbitral awards have any ground of refusal of recognition or enforcement according to article 38, the arbitral awards do not have the same effect on the parties as the final and conclusive judgement of the court; if arbitral awards have not recognised or been enforced according to article 38, the arbitral awards do not have the same effect on the parties as the final and conclusive judgement of the court. In the case of the former, the parties cannot file action for setting aside arbitral awards in article 36 to the court, and this is one of the important problems of the new act. In the new act, same ground of setting aside arbitral awards can be tried in different trial process with or without plead according to article 35 and 37. Therefore, progress of enforcement decision of arbitral awards can be blocked by the action of setting aside arbitral awards. If so, parties have to spend their time and money to go on unexpected litigation. In order to simplify enforcement procedure of arbitral awards, the new act changed enforcement judgement procedure to enforcement decision procedure. However, there is still room for the court to hear a case in the same way of enforcement judgement procedure. Although the new act simplifies enforcement procedure by changing enforcement judgement procedure to enforcement decision procedure, there still remains action of setting aside arbitral awards, so that enforcement of arbitral awards still can be delayed by it. Moreover, another problem exists in that the parties could have to wait until a seventh trial (maximum) for a final decision. This result in not good for the arbitration system itself in the respect of confidence as well as cost. If the arbitration institution promotes to use arbitration by emphasizing single-trial system of arbitration without enough improvement of enforcement procedure in the arbitration system, it would infringe the arbitration customer's right to be informed, and further raise a problem of legal responsibility of arbitration institution. With reference to enforcement procedure of interim measures of protection, the new act did not provide preliminary orders, and moreover limit the court not to recognize interim measures of protection done in a foreign country. These have a bad effect on the internationalization of the Korean arbitration system.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.3-30
• /
• 2007

The New York Convention(formally called "United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards") done in New York on June 10, 1958 has been adhered to by more than 140 States at the time of this writing, including almost all important trading nations from the Capitalist and Socialist World as well as many developing countries. The Convention can be considered as the most important Convention in the field of arbitration and as the cornerstone of current international commercial arbitration. Korea has acceded to the New York Convention since 1973. When acceding to the Convention, Korea declared that it will apply the Convention to the recognition and enforcement of awards made only in the territory of another Contracting State on the basis of reciprocity. Also, Korea declared that it will apply the Convention only to differences arising out of legal relationships, whether contractual or not, which are considered as commercial under the national law of Korea. The provisions relating to the enforcement of arbitral awards falling under the New York Convention begin at Article III. The Article III contains the general obligation for the Contracting States to recognize Convention awards as binding and to enforce them in accordance with their rules of procedure. The Convention requires a minimum of conditions to be fulfilled by the party seeking enforcement. According to Article IV(1), that party has only to supply (1) the duly authenticated original award or a duly certified copy thereof, and (2) the original arbitration agreement or a duly certified copy thereof. In fulfilling these conditions, the party seeking enforcement produces prima facie evidence entitling it to obtain enforcement of the award. It is then up to the other party to prove that enforcement should not be granted on the basis of the grounds for refusal of enforcement enumerated in the subsequent Article V(1). Grounds for refusal of enforcement are stipulated in Article V is divided into two parts. Firstly, listed in the first Para. of Article V are the grounds for refusal of enforcement which are to be asserted and proven by the respondent. Secondly, listed in Para. 2 of Article V, are the grounds on which a court may refuse enforcement on its own motion. These grounds are non-arbitrability of the subject matter and violation of the public policy of the enforcement country. The three main features of the grounds for refusal of enforcement of an award under Article V, which are almost unanimously affirmed by the courts, are the following. Firstly, The grounds for refusal of enforcement mentioned in Article V are exhaustive. No other grounds can be invoked. Secondly, and this feature follows from the first one, the court before which enforcement of the award is sought may not review the merits of the award because a mistake in fact or law by the arbitrators is not included in the list of grounds for refusal of enforcement set forth in Article V. Thirdly, the party against whom enforcement is sought has the burden of proving the existence of one or more of the grounds for refusal of enforcement. The grounds for refusal of enforcement by a court on its own motion, listed in the second Para. of Article V, are non-arbitrability of the subject matter and public policy of the enforcement country. From the court decisions reported so far at home and abroad, it appears that courts accept a violation of public policy in extreme cases only, and frequently justify their decision by distinguishing between domestic and international public policy. The Dec. 31, 1999 amendment to the Arbitration Act of Korea admits the basis for enforcement of foreign arbitral awards rendered under the New York Convention. In Korea, a holder of a foreign arbitral award is obliged to request from the court a judgment ordering enforcement of the award.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.43-68
• /
• 2020

The "arbitration" system resolves disputes through judgments on rights relations or claims between disputed parties by judging by private trial, but it does not have organizational and material bases to execute the contents of these judgments. Therefore, unless the parties succeed in voluntarily surrendering to the results of the arbitration award, the implementation of the award will be accomplished by the enforcement of the assistance of the National Court. However, unlike the court's ruling, the arbitration tribunal does not generate enforcement power from the judgment itself, and it must be filed with the court for execution. In this regard, Germany provides for arbitration proceedings in the Civil Procedure Act Volume 10. In particular, Article 1060 governs the approval and enforcement of domestic arbitral awards. Accordingly, the procedure for declaring the feasibility of domestic arbitration proceedings and the execution of forced execution are commenced. Regarding the enforceable declaration of a domestic arbitral award, it differs from the simpler process requirements compared to the procedure in a foreign arbitral award, and usually has the same effect as a final judgment between the parties without a separate approval procedure. However, the arbitration award does not constitute an enforceable power that can be implemented, but is enforced through the national court's declaration procedure. However, if there is a ground for cancellation as provided for in Article 1059 (2) of the German Civil Procedure Act, the arbitral award is canceled and the application for enforcement is dismissed.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.161-199
• /
• 2019

As international trades between Korea and China increase, the number of civil disputes also increases. The civil dispute settlement system and the court system in China are distinctive from those of Korea. China has its own court systems which are characterized by the Chinese Communist System. Due to the influence of the decentralized local autonomy tradition, the case laws of each Province in China are not unified throughout the China. This is partly because only two instances are provided in China, and the parties cannot appeal to the Supreme People's Court of China unless there is a special reason. In Korea, three instances are provided and parties can appeal to the Supreme Court if a party so chooses. In addition, there are many differences in the judicial environment of China compared to Korea. Therefore, if there is a dispute between a Korean party and a Chinese party, arbitration is recommended rather than court litigation. This article examines the points to be considered for interim measures in China during arbitration. Where the seat of arbitration is Korea, interim measures cannot be taken by the order of the Chinese court in the middle of or before arbitration procedures. On the other hand, it is possible to take interim measures through the Chinese court in the middle of or before the arbitration procedure in China or Hong Kong. It also reviews the points to be noted in case of the enforcement of arbitration awards in China where permission from the upper Court is required to revoke or to deny the recognition or enforcement of a foreign-related or foreign arbitration award.