id: 20251

Polish Supreme Court Order

dated 9 July 2008

Case No. V CZ 42/08

Summary by arbitraz.laszczuk.pl:

Under a 2003 sale agreement, company “M” bought a quantity of gravel from company “C”, and C assigned part of the claim for payment of the purchase price to company “D”. M failed to pay. D filed a claim with the Arbitration Court at the Polish Chamber of Commerce and received an award against M for about PLN 500,000. M challenged the award through several levels of review, finally reaching the Supreme Court on an interlocutory appeal from the appellate court’s denial of a second motion to reopen the proceeding to set aside the award. The grounds included an allegation that the assignment was fictitious. The Supreme Court denied relief to M, finding that M’s claims went to the merits of the dispute and that a second motion to reopen the proceeding was impermissible.

Excerpts from the text of the court’s ruling:

There is a great deal of autonomy in arbitration procedure, entirely consistent with the intention of lawmakers, distinctly limiting the availability of review by the state court. The basic goal of this legal regulation is to expedite the procedure for resolving civil disputes, not create an additional phase of pre-judicial procedure. Parties who decide to submit a dispute to an arbitration court must thus count on such conditions, including also minimal external review of arbitration awards.