 By Harry Liu and Qiu Yue of King & Wood Mallesons On April 11th, 2013, the former CIETAC Shanghai Sub-Commission officially became the Shanghai International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission/Shanghai International Arbitration Center, (SHIAC) and issued its new Arbitration Rules and Panel of Arbitrators, which became effective on May 1st 2013. Though it is too early to say this is the end of the war for jurisdictional disputes, this new development has at least provided some light at the end of the tunnel for the arbitration arena. The conflict between the institutions has given rise to some jurisdictional disputes amongst the parties and in some cases, parties have even applied to the courts to confirm the validity of arbitration agreements which had previously agreed upon CIETAC Shanghai Sub-Commission as the venue for the arbitration. A recent decision handed down by Liaoning High People’s Court on June 17th, 2013 has drawn the attention of the arbitration community. Though the case did not rule directly on the jurisdictional dispute between SHIAC and CIETAC, it reflects the position of the court towards the dispute. The parties agreed in the contract to submit their disputes to CIETAC Shanghai Commission for arbitration. By the time the dispute was ready to be heard, CIETAC had suspended its Shanghai Sub-commission from accepting and administering cases. The plaintiff therefore submitted the case to the Dalian Maritime Court. The defendant raised an objection to the court’s jurisdiction and insisted on arbitration. The Dalian Maritime Court rejected the case on the ground that, despite the suspension of the Shanghai Sub-commission, the parties were entitled to submit the case to CIETAC. On appeal, the Dalian Maritime Court’s decision was upheld by Liaoning High People’s Court. To put the implacable battle to an end, in other words, to lay the matter to rest, the Supreme People’s Court is preparing an interpretation to settle the jurisdictional dispute between CIETAC and SHIAC (Interpretation). The draft of the Interpretation has been circulated for comments. Once the Interpretation is announced officially, the conflict amongst the institutions and the conflict amongst the parties in relation to the issue of jurisdiction shall be seen settled for good, hopefully. |
