Originally from: Stockholm International Arbitration Review

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OVERVIEW OF THE REVISED RULES OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION COURT AT THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION (THE ICAC)

Prof. A.S. Komrov

The Past and the Present

In June 2007 the ICAC will celebrate seventy-five years of work. The dramatic changes in the social and economic conditions in Russia in the early nineties did not have a substantial impact on the ICAC's position as the leading and most well-known arbitration institution in the former Soviet Union (FSU). Abolition of the state monopoly in foreign trade, which largely contributed to the central role played by the ICAC in commercial dispute settlement in those years, did not lead to any decrease of authority in international arbitration accumulated during the previous years. What is more, the extensive expertise of the ICAC in the field of arbitration and its international reputation as a reliable arbitration institution acquired over decades have contributed to its current dominant position in the new economic and legal framework in modern-day Russia.

Present trends in the field of international arbitration in the FSU suggest that it is very likely in years to come the ICAC also will be viewed by the business and the legal community in Russia and other parts of the world as the most preferable alternative when the parties to international transactions agree on Russia as the place of arbitration of commercial disputes. This is supported by the fact that over the last decade the ICAC has remained the busiest arbitration institution dealing with international commercial disputes not only in Russia, but throughout all of the newly independent states formed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A substantial part of the ICAC's caseload now includes commercial disputes involving industrial and commercial enterprises from the CIS, where economic progress has been remarkable. This bodes well for the future.