The Court of Arbitration of the Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is more and more contacted and asked for information and explanations regarding the arbitration proceedings before entering into a contract. The main reasons why the arbitration clause should be added to the contract are the speed and confidentiality of the arbitration proceedings. From 1 January 2009 one of the reasons for adding the arbitration clause can also be the fact that this procedure is cheaper – the state fees in regular courts were almost doubled from that date.
On 1 January 2008 the new wording of the rules of the Court of Arbitration entered into force and which had been approved by the Board of the Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on 13 December 2007. The rules became clearer in content as well as format and were brought in line with the Code of Civil Procedure that entered into force at the beginning of the year 2006. The new wording of the rules can be seen at the web page of the Chamber of Commerce at www.koda.ee.
Settling of disputes at the Court of Arbitration has become very popular. The abbreviation ERD (Effective dispute resolving) related to arbitration is used increasingly due to the fact that the disputing parties really receive a final decision fast and with lower costs and the workload of the regular courts will be decreased.
In 2008 in total 23 petitions were filed to the Court of Arbitration. Materials of 21 actions were given to the Court of Arbitration for final settlement (including cases that were taken for processing in 2007). However, there were a record small number of returned action materials – only in four cases. In two cases the parties reached an agreement before the formation of the Court of Arbitration for settling the dispute, in one case the proceedings were terminated due to declaration of bankruptcy of the defendant and in one case the materials were returned to the plaintiff due to the fact that the plaintiff failed to pay the arbitration fee.
The majority of disputes of this year were international, only in ten cases both parties were from Estonia. The parties to international disputes were companies from Lithuania, Latvia, Italy, Finland, Germany and Russia. The disputes mainly concerned contracts. Nearly a third of the disputes resulted from contracts of purchase and sale and nearly half were related to loan contracts, the rest had to do with lease, privatisation, supply and other contracts. The court of arbitration was asked to rule to gain lost profits, caused damages and recognize receding from contract, illegality of termination of the contract and nullity of termination of the contract.
The cases submitted to the Court of Arbitration in 2007 and then not finished were finished in 2008.
The Court of Arbitration of the Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is more and more contacted and asked for information and explanations regarding the arbitration proceedings before entering into a contract. The main reasons why the arbitration clause should be added to the contract are the speed and confidentiality of the arbitration proceedings. From 1 January 2009 one of the reasons for adding the arbitration clause can also be the fact that this procedure is cheaper – the state fees in regular courts were almost doubled from that date.
