Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BelCCI) - National Arbitration Institution Report - World Arbitration Reporter (WAR) - 2nd Edition

Author(s): 

Alexey Anischenko

Page Count: 

20 pages

Media Description: 

1 PDF Download

Published: 

November, 2014

Jurisdictions: 

Belarus

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Originally from World Arbitration Reporter (WAR) - 2nd Edition

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I. BASIC INFORMATION

A. History and Background of the Institution

 

The International Arbitration Court of the Belarusian Chamber of

Commerce and Industry (BelCCI)1 (hereinafter “IAC”) is the first and

until now the most reputable permanent arbitration institution in

Belarus authorised to consider commercial disputes involving both

domestic and foreign parties. It was established in 1994 but until

1999 it was conducting its activity in an internal legal vacuum.

Notwithstanding being a signatory to key international agreements:

European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration

(hereinafter “European Convention”) and Convention on the

Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards

(hereinafter “New York Convention”), before 1999 the Republic of

Belarus had not had national arbitration laws.

 

In 1996 the status of the IAC was legalized by the Belarusian

Government and it was authorised to resolve (a) disputes between

foreign legal and natural persons and (b) disputes arising out of

foreign economic activity, in which at least one of the parties was a

non-resident of Belarus. Hence, purely domestic disputes were not

arbitrable at that time.

 

The Law of the Republic of Belarus No. 279-Z “On the

International Arbitration Court”2 (hereinafter “International

Arbitration Law”) was enacted on 9 July 1999 and was the only

arbitration law in the country until 2011, when the Law of the

Republic of Belarus No. 301- Z “On Arbitration Courts” of 25 Kuly

2011 (hereinafter “National Arbitration Law”) came into force. As a

result, a dual legal regime was introduced whereby the International

Arbitration Law applies to international arbitration (both institutional

and ad hoc), while the National Arbitration Law is supposed to be

applicable to domestic arbitration (both to institutional and ad hoc).3

 

The effective version of the Rules of the IAC (hereinafter “Rules”)

was adopted as a new edition of the Rules by the Presidium of the

Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on 17 March 2011

and came into force on 5 April 2011. This new edition provides for

three possible procedures for resolving disputes under the auspices

of the IAC, namely:

 

1) General procedure—for international cases;

 

2) Simplified procedure—for minor domestic cases when the

amount in dispute is not higher than 10.000 of the so called

basic units;4

 

3) Expedited procedure – for domestic cases if the simplified

procedure is not used.

 

According to the statistics for 2005-2008 that was recently

posted on the IAC’s website,5 the IAC administers roughly 70-80

cases per year. Most of those cases are international, IAC rarely deals

with domestic cases, primarily because of the cost and time

efficiency of the state courts dealing with commercial disputes.