Month: June 2015

By Marcel Tabajara Dias Ruas (Bogo & Ruas Sociedade de Advogados, Indaial, Santa Catarina, Brazil)

The Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (hereafter “STJ”) has recently delivered an important judgment regarding the enforceability of contracts containing arbitration clauses.

Under Brazilian Law (Civil Procedure Code, article 585, II), contracts and other private documents establishing the duty of a party to pay a precise amount of money at a pre-established date, if signed by two witnesses, might be enforced before the Courts regardless of a prior judgment. In the aforementioned judgment, the STJ held that such a rule is to be applied even if the agreement being enforced contains a dispute resolution clause under which the parties must settle any dispute through arbitration.

Continue reading Enforcement action of contracts containing arbitration clauses in Brazil

By Artem Doudko and Veronica Astashonak of White & Case LLP

There is no doubt that the decision in Gazprom[1] was widely anticipated by everyone in the arbitration community. Primarily it was seen as an opportunity for the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”), now renamed the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”), to depart from its highly controversial decision in West Tankers[2], if not to overturn it altogether. But this wasn’t the only reason. The Gazprom case allowed the CJEU to consider and bring more clarity to a number of other issues, such as the impact of the Recast Regulation[3], the relationship between European Union law and obligations of Member States under other international law instruments and the position of arbitral tribunals that are not seated in a Member State.

Continue reading “Thou shall not sue!” – who decides?