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WEBINAR ON THE NEW YORK ARBITRATION CONVENTION

18 November 2021

Our managing partner, dr.Richard Schmidt held a webinar on the international and domestic court practice of the New York Arbitration Convention. The event was co-organised by the Legal Section of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Hungarian Lawyers’ Association.

1. The New York Convention in a nutshell

The New York Convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards is one of the success stories of international arbitration. Besides counting almost 170 signatories, the Convention was a starting point for the UNCITRAL when elaborating the Model Law on International Arbitration in 1986, which served as a model for the Hungarian legislator during the last two codifications of the law of arbitration in Hungary in 1994 and in 2017.

Since the UNCITRAL Model law, which significantly influenced the Hungarian Arbitration Act, borrows the legal framework of the New York Convention in respect of the setting aside of arbitral awards, the latter legal source is indispensable not only for those practitioners, who act in cross-border matters, but for lawyers who counsel clients in purely domestic arbitral proceedings.

2. Scope of the Convention, reservations

Richard started the webinar with the basic issues of the subject matter scope and territorial scope of the New York Convention. After that he followed with the reservations, which are open for the signatories on the following two grounds: reciprocity and commerciality.

Since Hungary opted for the latter reservation, Richard analysed the Hungarian case law regarding the interpretation of the “commercial” matters, which is rightly interpreted in a broad manner by domestic courts.

3. Enforcement of the arbitration agreement

The second part of the webinar focused on the enforcement of arbitration agreements.

Article II of the New York Convention regulates the concept, the presumed validity, the formal validity and the so-called negative effect of the arbitration agreement.

After summarising more leading international judgments, Richard analysed some Hungarian decisions from the recent past, concluding that in relation with the enforcement of arbitration agreements the domestic case law is converging to the leading international pro-arbitration approach.

4. Enforcement of the arbitral award

Article IV. of the New York Convention regulates the formal requirements regarding the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards to be complied with the award-creditor, while Article V includes an exhaustive list of grounds, that can be invoked by an award-debtor to resist the recognition and enforcement of the award.

After summarising the leading trends in respect of Article IV and V of the New York Convention, Richard focused on the domestic court practice in the last three decades.

While Hungarian courts tend to interpret rigorously and strictly the formal requirements set forth by Article IV (especially original or certified documents, official translations), when it comes to the grounds of refusal laid down by Article V, the domestic court practice adopts the leading pro-arbitration approach.

We would like to thank the Legal Section of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Hungarian Lawyers’ Association for organising this event.