Arbitration proceedings conducted before the Arbitration Court are single-instance, unless the parties agree in the arbitration agreement on the possibility of review of the arbitral award by other arbitrators [(Sec. 1 paragraph 4 of the Rules of the Arbitration Court (hereinafter referred to as the "Rules") in conjunction with § 27 of Act No. 216/1994 Coll., on Arbitration Proceedings and the Enforcement of Arbitral Awards (hereinafter referred to as the "Arbitration Act")]. Therefore, the arbitral award is final and binding, and no appeal or other remedy may be filed against it.

 

The legal order, specifically § 31 et seq. of the Arbitration Act, governs the possibility of annulment of an arbitral award by a general court under the conditions specified in these provisions. An arbitral award can only be annulled for reasons provided by law, which stem from procedural defects (e.g., the Arbitration Court lacked jurisdiction, the dispute was decided by an excluded arbitrator, or the parties were not granted equal standing in the proceedings). The general court is not authorized to review the arbitral award on its merits, i.e., regarding the correctness of the evaluation of the evidence presented, the accuracy of the factual findings, or the subsequent legal assessment of the case (see, for example, the Decision of the Supreme Court of April 5, 2017, case no. 23 Cdo 5360/2016).

 

In the event that an arbitral award is challenged by a petition for its annulment, the party involved in the proceedings before the general court is obligated to inform the Arbitration Court about the ongoing proceedings and to send the petition for annulment of the arbitral award, along with any other submissions, to the Arbitration Court (Sec. 1 paragraph 5 of the Rules).

 

The Arbitration Court is not a party to the proceedings for the annulment of an arbitral award; the parties to the proceedings for annulment are the original parties to the arbitration (see the Decision of the Supreme Court dated August 23, 2016, case no. 23 Cdo 5761/2015).

 

The Arbitration Court is not automatically informed by the general court of the initiation of proceedings for the annulment of an arbitral award. In practice, the Arbitration Court is often contacted by the general courts in this context only when the court requires the case file from the relevant arbitration. In such instances, the Arbitration Court always acts in accordance with its duty of confidentiality as set out in § 6 of the Arbitration Act and requests all participants of the arbitration proceeding to express their consent or objection to the provision of the case file to the general court. If a party objects to the disclosure of the case file, or fails to respond to the Arbitration Court’s request, the Arbitration Court will not provide the documentation to the general court. The duty of confidentiality may, however, be waived by the president of the competent district court, even against the will of the parties to the arbitration; such waivers, however, occur only in exceptional circumstances.

 

If an arbitral award is annulled, a party to the arbitration proceedings may file a motion to resume the proceedings within 30 days of the date on which the court’s decision annulling the award becomes final and binding (the motion to resume the proceedings submitted after this period shall be treated as a new claim in accordance with Section 1 paragraph (6) of the Rules. According to the Act on Arbitration Proceedings, if the motion to resume the arbitration is submitted after the 30-day period, the legal effects of the original claim shall not be preserved - this means that the claims asserted in the original claim may become time-barred or extinguished due to the expiry of limitation or preclusion periods (Section 16 paragraph (2) of the Arbitration Act). The resumed proceedings shall be conducted by the arbitrators who took part in the original hearing of the dispute, unless otherwise stated in the law (Section 34 paragraph (2) of the Arbitration Act).

 

Based on the practice of the Arbitration Court, it can be stated that the Arbitration Court is informed annually of dozens of proceedings seeking the annulment of arbitral awards. However, in recent years, arbitral awards have only rarely been annulled. From the disputes initiated in 2023–2024 (over 1,000 cases), the Arbitration Court currently has no record of a single case in which an arbitral award has been annulled. Of the disputes initiated in 2020–2022 (over 1,500 cases), the Arbitration Court has record of only four cases in which an arbitral award was annulled. Between 2020 and 2024, according to data available to the Arbitration Court, an arbitral award was annulled in only approximately 0.16% of all proceedings initiated before the Arbitration Court during the relevant period.

 

(Note: The Arbitration Court cannot, however, rule out the possibility that an arbitral award may have been annulled without the Court being informed thereof, in cases where neither party submitted a motion to resume the proceedings.)

 

The Arbitration Court has compiled an overview of relevant case law concerning proceedings for the annulment of arbitral awards, which is available here. This overview includes case law relating to annulment proceedings in general, and is not limited solely to arbitral awards issued by the Arbitration Court.