Jurisdictional immunities of foreign States at the stage of recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards in Russia

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The article addresses the issue whether the conclusion of an arbitration agreement by a foreign State by itself implies under Russian law that the foreign State has waived its immunity from jurisdiction for the purposes of the subsequent recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award in the courts where the assets of the debtor-State are located. The issue is resolved from the perspective of both commercial and investment arbitration. The article comments on the judgment of the Commercial Court for the Moscow Circuit dated 29 August 2017 in Tatneft v Ukraine (А40-67511/2017). The article further offers interpretation of an arbitration exception under Article 6(2) of the Federal Law dated 3 November 2015 No.297-FZ “On jurisdictional immunities of the foreign State and assets of the foreign State in the Russian Federation”. The article derives the offered interpretation from travaux préparatoires to the Law, the UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of the States and Their Property, other treaties and soft law instruments on the issues of State immunity, European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, State practice and customary international law. Along the line, the article offers interpretation of the ambiguous Article 17 of the UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of the States and Their Property based on a detailed analysis of travaux préparatoires to it, summarizes State practice on the issue whether the fact of the State’s entering into arbitration agreement as such can be deemed a waiver of immunity from jurisdiction for the purposes of subsequent recognition and enforcement of the arbitral award, and opines on the state of customary law on the same issue.

About the author: Alexey Vyalkov – Magister Juris (University of Oxford, the United Kingdom); practitioner; Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Vyalkov A. (2017) Sudebnye immunitety inostrannykh gosudarstv na stadii prisnania i privedenia v ispolnenie resheniy arbitrazhey v Rossii [Jurisdictional immunities of foreign States at the stage of recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards in Russia]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, no.4, pp.89–121. (In Russian).

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