On 21 May 2016, the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA), in cooperation with the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) and the National Centre for Judicial Studies organized the Cairo New York Convention (NYC) Roadshow at CRCICA Conference Centre in Cairo-Egypt.
The event was attended by 56 Egyptian judges from the following courts: The Court of Cassation, the Cairo Court of Appeal, the Southern Cairo First Instance Court, the Giza First Instance Court, the Cairo Economic Court, in addition to members of the public prosecution at the Court of Cassation.
The discussions were led by the following seven experts: Prof. Dr. Ahmed S. El Kosheri (Founding Partner, Kosheri, Rashed and Riad, Cairo-Egypt and Advisory Member of ICCA); Prof. Dr. Borham Attallah (Civil Law Professor, Faculty of Law, Alexandria University); Judge Dominique Hascher (French Cour de Cassation and ICCA Governing Board member), Judge Borhan Amrallah (former President of the Cairo Court of Appeal), Judge Nabil Omran (Vice-President of the Court of Cassation), Judge Ismail Al-Ziady (Cairo Court of Appeal) in addition to CRCICA Director and ICCA Governing Board member, Dr. Mohamed Abdel Raouf.
The program of the one day event included three lectures covering the following topics: 1) An overview of the NYC, its objectives, means of interpretation and salient comparative judicial application; 2) the importance of the NYC as a means of assuring legal security; and 3) the role of the national judge in the international arbitration process from the perspectives of both the practitioners and the judges.
The lectures were followed by panel-led discussions covering: 1) Article I to IV of the NYC relating to its scope of application, the arbitration agreement, the enforcement procedures and the requirements to be satisfied by the parties seeking to recognize/enforce foreign arbitral awards; 2) Article V of the NYC relating to the grounds for refusing the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards; 3) Article VII of the NYC with special emphasis on the relationship between the NYC and the Riyadh Convention of 1983 covering inter alia the enforcement of Arab arbitral awards in Arab states; and 4) the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards set aside at the seat of arbitration.
The texts of the NYC, the Egyptian Arbitration Act, the relevant provisions of the Egyptian law on civil procedures as well as the Arabic version of the ICCA’s Guide to the Interpretation of the 1958 New York Convention were made available to the participants in addition to five relevant judgments rendered by the Egyptian Court of Cassation and the Cairo Court of Appeal as well as three doctrinal articles regarding the application of the NYC.
The Roadshow was a great success and has led to very interesting discussions especially with respect to the discretion of the national judges in enforcing arbitral awards while one or more of the causes of refusing enforcement exist, the importance of having a harmonized application of the provisions of the NYC in accordance with the standards and principles of interpretation of international law, the public policy defence under the NYC as well as the analysis of the position of the French courts regarding the enforcement of arbitral awards that have been set aside at the seat.
Details pertaining to ICCA’s judicial virtual forum and the New York Arbitration Convention website were brought to the attention of all participants who showed their interest in learning more about international arbitration in general and the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in particular.
CRCICA seizes this opportunity to thank Judge Nabil Omran for his tremendous efforts exerted in order to successfully conduct the Cairo NYC Roadshow. CRCICA also wishes to acknowledge the genuine cooperation of Judge Borhan Amrallah and Judge Omar Hafiz as well as the latter’s colleagues at the National Centre for Judicial Studies.
