Arbitral award of International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Georgia

Interlegal represented the interests of their Client, one of the major producers of fat and oil commodities, in respect of recognition and enforcement of arbitral award of ICAC against a Georgian company.

Under the Georgian law, recognition of foreign arbitral awards is conducted by the Supreme Court of Georgia. After the award is recognized, the creditor shall apply to enforcement bureau of Georgia, which performs the enforcement of judgments.

Interlegal has prepared and served all the documents necessary for the court’s consideration. Generally the procedure of recognition of a judgment under Georgian law takes around 2 months and does not require oral hearings. Yet, in this matter, the debtor took an active part in the proceedings and served several objections against recognition which led to appointment of oral hearing by the judge of Supreme Court.

The main argument of the debtor was that the conclusions of the ICAC in respect of awarding penalties contradicts the public order of Georgia, therefore, the award of  ICAC could not be recognized. Under the Georgian law provisions, in the event the penalties exceed half of the amount of the main indebtedness, they can be regarded by the court as ungrounded enrichment. During the oral hearing Interlegal managed to persuade the Supreme Court that the award of  ICAC did not contradict the public order of Georgia, as the amount of penalties did not evidence the possibility of ungrounded enrichment by the creditor.

The Supreme Court made a judgment in favour of the client of Interlegal and recognized the award of ICAC in full and Interlegal proceeded to enforcement of the arbitral award.