Originally from World Arbitration Reporter - Second Edition

Preview Page

I.  BASIC INFORMATION

A. History and Background of the Institution

Maritime arbitration played a leading role in the development of commercial arbitration in Japan.  The history of arbitration in Japan goes back to 1889 and a dispute relating to the purchase of a steamship from Germany.  

Between 1891 and 1938, some 40% of the arbitral awards deposited with Japanese courts related to maritime disputes.  The majority of those awards were deposited with the Kobe District Court, and in 1912 the Kobe Shipping Union began providing arbitral services. 

The bulk of the Kobe Shipping Union's caseload concerned disputes relating to time charter parties and contracts for the carriage of goods by sea.  It handed down 43 arbitral awards between 1912 and 1926 before being succeeded by the Kobe Shipping Exchange, Ltd., which was subsequently incorporated into the Japan Shipping Exchange, Inc. (“JSE”) in 1933. 

Under the JSE, an increasingly broad range of maritime disputes began to be referred to arbitration, including ship purchase, ship building and repair disputes.  This was largely due to the corporate structure of the JSE, which allowed it to reserve a substantial number of arbitrators from a wide range of specialisms, including ship building, marine insurance, underwriting, ship brokering and financing.

The Tokyo Maritime Arbitration Commission (“TOMAC”) was established as a sub-structure of the JSE in 1926.  Its purpose was to increase the independence and fairness of maritime arbitration in Japan by having responsibility for the management of arbitrations referred to the JSE.