Seminar “Current Trends in Russian Arbitration Law” in Hamburg

Seminar “Current trends in Russian arbitration law – in light of the recent case law and the pending law reform” took place on 2 September 2014 in Hamburg (Germany). Norton Rose Fulbright hosted this event organized by the German-Russian Lawyers’ Association.

Important new developments occurred this summer with regard to pending Russian legislative reform on domestic and international arbitration. Indeed, for about a year or even more a working group under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Justice elaborated detailed draft federal arbitration laws.

These draft laws aimed to replace existing legislation with a view to solve a number of acute problems of arbitral proceedings in Russia. In particular, the draft laws provided for obligatory registration of arbitration institutions with a Russian competent state body and imposed many restrictions on their activity.

On the other hand, the draft laws purported to ensure higher quality standards of arbitral proceedings in Russia and to clarify arbitrability of corporate and other disputes. These draft laws arouse a heated discussion and also strong critics within the Russian arbitration community.

However, this summer the Legal Department at the Russian President issued an opinion disapproving the draft laws. The opinion criticised what it called an “excessive intervention of the state into the arbitration courts’ activity” and underlined the necessity to enhance attractiveness of Russian arbitral institutions for international parties.

As result, the draft laws now need a thorough, if not complete, review.

Dr. Dmitry Davydenko, editor of CIS Arbitration Forum, Senior Associate at Muranov Chernyakov & Partners Law Firm, tribunal secretary at ICAC and MAC at Russian Chamber of Commerce spoke on the above issues. The speaker reflected on these and relevant develpments, as well as on crucial conclusions in recent judgments of  Russian state courts relating to arbitration. A thoughtful discussion followed the speech.

Practitioners from German and international law firms attended the seminar and found it instructive.

You can see the PowerPoint presentation of the seminar on “Current Trends in Russian Arbitration Law“.