Statistics of case consideration at the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry

• Litigation & arbitration

This publication is the adapted version of the report by Nikolay Selivon, President of ICAC at the UCCI, upon the ICAC operation results in 2017.

Case consideration in 2017
In 2017, among 331 cases accepted for arbitration proceedings, ICAC considered 295 cases. Arbitration court issued awards upon 280 cases and rulings on suspending case proceedings upon 15 cases. 164 cases were considered by the sole Arbitration Tribunal, 131 cases – by the collegial Arbitration Tribunal.

In 2017, 557 arbitrators participated in case consideration, including 325 male (58.3%) and 232 female (41.7%) arbitrators. ICAC statistics in respect of gender equality is one of the best among global arbitration institutes.

There is a positive dynamics regarding growth of female arbitrators. For the last year, the number of chairwomen of the Arbitration Tribunal increased significantly: one in three in 2017 against one in five in 2016.

As for total ICAC case proceedings (295), 183 case considerations resulted in full claim satisfaction, 65 – in partial claim satisfaction, while in 10 cases claim satisfaction was rejected. Case proceedings were suspended upon 13 cases in respect of debt recovery (due to voluntary debt payment by the defendant after the claimant had filed a claim to ICAC). Upon 9 cases, arbitration awards were issued under the terms and conditions agreed by the parties (due to concluding amicable agreement).

As for total ICAC case proceedings, in 57 cases (19.3%) arbitration language was Ukrainian, in 9 cases (3.1%) – English, in 1 case – German, while in the remaining cases arbitration language was Russian.

In most cases (95.9%) dispute settlement was governed by the substantive law of Ukraine, while the Vienna Convention 1980 applied in 5 cases only, substantive law of the Russian Federation – in 5 cases, substantive law of Belarus – in 2 cases, law of England, Wales, Greece, Moldova and Romania – in 1 case each.

In 2017 foreign arbitrators from Belarus, Serbia, the USA, France and Sweden participated in ICAC case proceedings for many times.

Geography of the parties
As for ICAC case proceedings from January 1 till December 31, 2017, parties represented 54 countries, including: Czech Republic – 31 cases, Cyprus – 26 cases, the UAE – 17 cases, British Virgin Islands and Germany – 15 cases each, China – 12 cases (including 3 cases in Hong Kong), the United Kingdom and Poland – 9 cases each, Ireland and Switzerland – 8 cases each, the USA – 6 cases, Latvia and Turkey – 5 cases each, Estonia – 4 cases, Belize, Georgia, Spain, Italy, Lithuania – 3 cases each, Bulgaria, Greece, India, Pakistan, Panama, Romania – 2 cases each, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Liechtenstein, Malta, the Netherlands, the Seychelles, Singapore, Tunisia, Finland, France, Sweden and South Africa – 1 case each.

As for CIS countries in ICAC case proceedings, parties from the Russian Federation were engaged in 42 cases, Belarus – 16 cases, Moldova – 10 cases, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – 4 cases each, Azerbaijan – 3 cases, Armenia and Turkmenistan – 2 cases each, Kirgizia and Tajikistan – 1 case each.

Types of disputed agreements
As for total ICAC case proceedings from January 1 till December 31, 2017, most of case proceedings (236) touched international agreements on goods sale & purchase/supply, 37 cases – service agreements (including 2 cases upon banking services), 7 cases – tender contracts, 3 cases – surety agreements, 3 cases – loan agreements, while the remaining 9 cases touched carriage, insurance, lease, guarantee, agency agreements and others.

Terms of arbitration case proceedings
Terms of case consideration (from the date of the Arbitration Tribunal formation and until issuing the award/ruling on the merits) were as short as possible: 97% of case proceedings did not exceed half a year.

Appeal against arbitration awards
ICAC awards have been enforced successfully in over 110 countries. In average, nearly 4% of ICAC awards were appealed against, with a merely 1% of canceled awards. Such small share of appeal against arbitration awards shows high level of the arbitration court operation, jointly with objective and impartial case consideration, even in case when the lost party was morally satisfied with case consideration. In 2017, the Order of the Higher Special Court of Ukraine dd. November 9, 2017, canceled one ICAC award considered in 2016.

Conclusion
Interlegal draws much attention to case support at the international commercial arbitration, including at the Ukrainian institutional arbitration. Interlegal partners participate actively in LMAA, SCMA and GMAA operations, while Interlegal lawyers support GAFTA and FOSFA case proceedings. Interlegal also participated actively in drafting the new wordings of ICAC and MAC Rules, submitted in a duly prescribed manner to the UCCI Presidium for consideration and approved by the UCCI Decision No. 25 (6) dd. July 27, 2017. New ICAC and MAC Rules entered into force on January 1, 2018.

New wording of ICAC and MAC Rules have been drafted with regards to global trends in arbitration and reforms in the Ukrainian procedural legislation, with preserved own exclusive experience of dispute settlement, in order to facilitate effective settlement of foreign economic disputes within ICAC and MAC competence. Provisions of the Rules are aimed to increase the efficiency of arbitration proceedings, in order to make arbitration proceedings time/cost-saving and comfortable for the parties.

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Nikolay Melnykov

melnykov@interlegal.com.ua