Procedural Order in Case 14581

Procedural Order in Case 18563

It is widely accepted that arbitral tribunals have the power to rule on their own jurisdiction, for which the fundamental prerequisite is a valid arbitration agreement. To uphold a valid arbitration agreement, they may be required to rule also on parallel proceedings initiated by one of the parties – whether before another arbitral tribunal or a state court – that could pose a threat to the integrity of the proceedings they are conducting. The arbitral tribunals here issued contrasting decisions. In one case, the tribunal ordered the discontinuation of parallel proceedings initiated in a state court after the commencement of the arbitration proceedings. In the other case, the tribunal refused to order the suspension of a concurrent arbitration as it was not yet certain that jurisdiction lay with the ICC tribunal.

Readers are reminded that a procedural order is a decision made by a particular arbitral tribunal in the exercise of its duties under the ICC Arbitration Rules in light of the circumstances of the case. Unlike awards, procedural orders are not subject to scrutiny by the ICC International Court of Arbitration.

For the purpose of publication, the procedural decisions reproduced here have been redacted so as to remove names of parties and other details not indispensable for their intelligibility. The decisions are reproduced in their original language. The footnotes form part of the original texts, unless otherwise stated, but have been renumbered in a continuous sequence.