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

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.35
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• pp.101-124
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• 2007

This paper purposes to examine the setting aside and the refusal of enforcement of arbitral awards and their implications for practitioners. The aim of challenging an award before a national court at the seat, or place, of arbitration is to have it modified in some way by the relevant court, or more usually, to have that court declare that the award is to be disregarded (i.e. "annulled" or "set aside") in whole or in part. If an award is set aside or annulled by the relevant court, it will usually be treated as invalid and accordingly unenforceable, not only by the courts of the seat of arbitration but also by national courts elsewhere. This is because, under both the 1958 New York Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law, the competent court may refuse to grant recognition and enforcement of an award that has been "set aside" by a court of the seat of arbitration. The New York Convention set out various grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement of an arbitration award. The provisions of the Model Law governing recognition, enforcement or setting-aside of awards are almost identical to those set out in the Convention. Especially, the New York Convention and the Model Law state that an arbitral award may be refused and set aside if a national court of the place of arbitration finds that the award is in conflict with the public policy of its own country. Each state has its own concept of what is required by its "public policy". It is possible to envisage, for example, a dispute over the division of gaming profits from a casino. In many states, the underlying transaction that led to the award would be regarded as a normal commercial transaction and the award would be regarded as valid. Indeed, it is a consistent theme to be found in the legislation and judical decision of many countries. If a workable definition of "international public policy" could be found, it would provide an effective way of preventing an award in an international arbitration from being set aside and refusal for purely domestic policy consideration.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.213-244
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• 2004

This article studied on international trade dispute of enforcement procedure of foreign arbitral awards at Korean Supreme Court, which is especially related to New York Convention article 5, The key points of most enforcement procedure were about public policy according New York Convention article 5, 2, b and New York Convention article 5, 1. Particularly, Judgement of public policy from Supreme Court represented that the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral award is to present and protect basic moral conviction and social order from spoiling, and not only domestic situation but also international stability of transaction should be taken into consideration in judging on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral award, which is construed under certain limitation. In this point, you should be understand the concept on refusal reasons in enforcing of foreign arbitral awards

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.25-46
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• 2010

In spite of great interest and recent innovation of the legislative system in the Arbitration and other Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) system, In Japan there have been only a few case in which International commercial dispute was settled through the Arbitration compared to other countries. However, we can easily expect that foreign arbitral awards which need to be recognized and enforced in Japan will gradually increase and this makes it very important for us to review the Japanese legislative system regarding recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. In this paper, I focused on the relations between applicable laws(including convention) regarding recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Japan and some issues concerning refusal of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Japan is a member state of several multilateral conventions concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards including the New York Convention of 1958 and at least 20 bilateral agreements which include provisions in relate to the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards. Therefore there are some legal issues about the priority application between multilateral and bilateral agreements in relate to Article 7(1) of the New York Convention. In Japan, as I mentioned in this paper, there are incoherent opinions concerning this issue. To solve it substantially it would seem appropriate to build up concrete and explicit provisions concerning the application of priority between multilateral and bilateral agreements. On the other hand, in relate to the application between the New York Convention and National Law, it is necessary to take general approach regarding the priority application between Convention (Treaty) and National Law, considering the national application of conventions under the Constitutional System of each country. Among the grounds for non-recognition/enforcement, there are the ones that are decided under the law of the requested country, for instance, arbitrability and public policy. It would therefore be possible that some foreign arbitral awards would not be recognized in Japan especially relating to the arbitrability because its scope in Japan is not so large. Regarding the enforcement of awards annulled in their place of origin, some positive opinions in recent Japanese legal discussions, say that annulled awards should be enforced as a counter strategy of developed countries and judiciary discretion of the requested country would be needed. As mentioned in this paper, the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards is closely related to judicial policy of the requested country as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgment is. Even though there existed uniform rules on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards like the New York convention, each country has different internal legal status of conventions under its own Constitutional System and tends to interpret the provisions based in its own profit. Therefore, it is necessary to review, in the light of conflict of laws, the national legislative system including legal status of conventions of the requested countries concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.263-292
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• 2005

In China, as far as the enforcement of the award is concerned, a three-pronged regime exists : each for domestic, foreign-related and foreign awards. As opposed to domestic awards, foreign-related awards are defined as those involving 'foreign-element.' Among them, this article focuses on the enforcement regimes of foreign-related and foreign arbitral award, and strives to provide a practical outlook of the arbitral award enforcement regime in China. For that, this article consists of five chapters. In chapter I, the purpose and scope of this study are mentioned; In Chapter II, the types, the statutory framework, the related measures, the statistical assessment on enforcement of arbitral awards are addressed. Chapter III points out some issues on the enforcement regimes of foreign-related and foreign arbitral awards, with focus paid to the recognition of foreign-related arbitral awards, the substantive judicial review of foreign-related arbitral awards, and the refusal of enforcement with the social and public interest ground. Chapter VI introduces two non-enforcement cases of foreign-related and foreign arbitral awards. Lastly in chapter V, the author makes a proposal to improve the enforcement regime in China. Although China already obtained a certain level of achievement, she still need to be undertaken by the government and judicial authorities to offset the negative effects of some obstacles to hamper the enforcement such as protectionism so that she may create a more favorable arbitration environment.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.67-94
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• 2020

This paper examines the current enforcement regime of Korea and provides an overview of the same with focus on the changes before and after the 2016 revision of the Korean Arbitration Act. It briefly studies the pro-arbitration bias of the New York Convention, as well as the Korean judiciary's stance on the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Some of the substantial issues discussed in the paper include the major procedural changes brought about by the 2016 amendment with respect to the enforcement of arbitral awards. The paper also discusses the rare instances where the Korean judiciary refused to recognize or enforce an arbitral award, and the reasoning behind the refusal. The paper discusses and analyzes four court judgments that reflect the Korean judiciary's position on the enforcement of foreign and domestic arbitral awards in Korea. It focuses on the NDS v. KT Skylife case, where the court of first instance refused the enforcement on grounds that the relief granted by the arbitral tribunal was not specific enough for enforcement. Ultimately, the appellate court, although agreeing on the specificity requirement, reversed the ruling and granted an enforcement judgment on grounds that the application for enforcement had the legal interest to request an enforcement judgment.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.19-47
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• 2015

International arbitration is an increasingly popular means of alternative dispute resolution for cross-border commercial transactions. The primary advantage of international arbitration over court litigation is enforceability. An international arbitration award is enforceable in most countries in the world. Especially, statistics indicate of ASEAN such as Malaysia and Singapore that the vast majority of defeated companies comply with the terms of international arbitral awards against them or settle soon after the award is rendered. Unlike Malaysia and Singapore, in Indonesia, there are several grounds for refusal of enforcement of an award including where both the nature of the dispute and the agreement to arbitrate do not meet the requirements set out in the Arbitration Law. Because Indonesia does not acknowledge decisions of foreign courts, theoretically they could enforce an international arbitral award which was set aside by the court in the seat of arbitration. This paper introduces the legal system and cases of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitration awards in ASEAN, especially Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Secondly, by comparing their law and cases, the paper emphasized the international suitability and global fitness in involved in recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitration awards.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.79-103
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• 2014

In light of increasing international trade in recent years, international arbitration has been more widely used by international parties to resolve their conflicts. Thus, the need for reliable and effective enforcement of foreign arbitral awards has amplified. To facilitate the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, the New York Convention lists grounds for the refusal of recognition and enforcement in Article V. This paper examines prominent U.S. case law on Article V(1)(b), which is put in place to ensure that arbitration proceedings are conducted properly in accordance with due process requirements: proper notice to parties and an opportunity to a fundamentally fair hearing. This examination of case law conveys that U.S. courts refuse to enforce foreign arbitral awards pursuant to Article V(1)(b) only when due process rights of the party against whom the award is to be enforced are clearly violated by the arbitral tribunal. This paper also reveals that U.S. courts mainly defer to arbitral tribunals' discretion, especially as to evidentiary matters. Therefore, it is predicted that U.S. courts will likely continue to narrowly construe the grounds in Article V to facilitate reliable and effective enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the U.S.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.141-164
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• 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
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.3-54
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• 2002

When the ruling of Foreign Arbitral Awards contradicts the public policy of the enforcement state, it can be a ground for a refusal to enforce the ruling. New York Convention V section 2, UNCITRAL section 36, and Korean arbitration law section 36 confirm this principle. The final ruling of international arbitral awards should be respected according to the international convention or the principle of reciprocity, which cancel out the above principle: when the ruling contradicts the country's public policy, it can be refused to enforcement. Since the Helsinki General Convention, ILA have studied upon it and presented the final report and recommendation during the 2002 New Delhi General Convention. In it, firstly, the finality of awards rendered in the context of international commercial arbitration should be respected save in exceptional circumstances. Secondly, every state is recommended the “international public policy”, on which it can refuse to follow the ruling of international arbitral awards, and advised to respect it as far as possible.