I. INTRODUCTION: ARBITRATION IN TAIWAN –

HISTORY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

A. History and Current Legislation on Arbitration

1. Historical evolution of law relating to arbitration

The contemporary arbitration system of Taiwan is basically

transplanted from western countries. After about 50 years’ evolution

of arbitration in Taiwan, it has already become a mature and

constantly relied-on dispute settlement mechanism in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s arbitration system was first established based on a

legislation enacted in China. In 1921 when the government of the

Republic was still in Nanjing, the “Temporary Act for Commercial

Arbitration” was enacted. It was repealed in Taiwan in 1961 when

the “Commercial Arbitration Act” was enacted. The Commercial

Arbitration Act was further replaced by the current Arbitration Law

in 1998.

2. Current law

The enactment of the 1998 “Arbitration Law” marked an

important development in Taiwan’s arbitration practices. The

Arbitration Law includes many new features similar to those

included in the legislations in other countries. These new features

are the disclosure requirements, the ethical requirements, and the

amiable compositeur provisions, among others. When the

Arbitration Law was drafted, many foreign legislations, such as those

of United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and Japan, as well as

the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration

were taken into important consideration.

3. Confidentiality and publication of awards

Usually an arbitral award is not published. It is mainly because of

the institutional arbitration rules requiring the arbitrators to