On September 15, 22 and 28, the Georgian Association of Arbitrators (GAA) hosted workshops with stakeholders to discuss a draft package of legislative amendments to the Law on Arbitration prepared by the Association. The activity was supported by the USAID Rule of Law Program. 

The amendments aim to improve Georgia’s arbitration legislation by addressing problems in Georgian arbitration practice that were observed after entry into force of the new Law on Arbitration in 2010, and legislative changes in 2015. The proposed changes will make the enforcement of arbitration agreements more efficient and predictable for parties and include: clearly defining the notion of ad hoc arbitration to ensure the validity of such arbitration agreements; amending the procedure for recognizing interim measures issued by arbitrators to ensure ex parte enforcement by Georgia’s Courts of Appeals; and requiring courts of first instance to issue an order/decision when invalidating arbitration clauses under Article 9 of the Law and subjecting such orders/decisions to appeal. The pool of experts who worked on the legislative package included arbitration practitioners and academics. 

The workshops were conducted with three groups of stakeholders: 1) lawyers from Georgian Bar Association, Legal Aid Service, Association of Law Firms of Georgia, and Mediators Association of Georgia; 2) representatives of business associations, including International Chamber of Commerce, American Chamber of Commerce, European Business Association, Business Association of Georgia, Banks Association, and Microfinance Organizations’ Association; and 3) arbitration practitioners, including representatives of the following arbitration institutions: Georgian International Arbitration Center, Dispute Resolution Center, Legia, Moravi, and Tbilisi Arbitration Institute.

“We have several reasons for engaging non-arbitration practitioner lawyers, business associations and business representatives in the process of developing the proposed amendments, in addition to arbitration practitioners. Engaging them in these discussions will increase the popularity of arbitration, enables us to obtain diverse feedback from different stakeholders, and increases the support and engagement of diverse representatives of legal and business society for the amendments package. All of this will help us push the government to initiate and adopt the proposed changes, which will address several practical problems and make Georgia more arbitration-friendly.” - said Jaba Gvelebiani, GAA Chairman.  

“The practice of arbitration in Georgia has shown that further improvements are needed to make the arbitration framework more user-friendly and predictable for its users, the business community. We support GAA's initiative to identify and propose areas where legislative intervention is needed and to hold consultations with all relevant stakeholders regarding specific amendments. We hope that the Ministry of Justice and Parliament will be engaged and support the process as well. The USAID Rule of Law Program views arbitration and other means of dispute resolution as an integral part of its access to justice programming and will continue its support in this area in the coming years.” – said Giorgi Chkheidze, USAID Rule of Law Program Chief of Party.

During the meetings, GAA received general and specific feedback on the proposed amendments. For example, it was suggested to address the need for anti-suit injunctions in the Law, as well as to make the regulation on arbitration-related notifications clearer regarding the validity of email notifications.

As a next step, the GAA will hold discussions with the judiciary and will also open a stakeholders’ consultations electronic platform to let all interested parties provide detailed written feedback. The GAA working group will then review and revise the amendments package and submit the updated package to the Ministry of Justice for further consideration.