EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Muhammad Ussama and Adam El Shalakany, Shalakany Law Office
still, in the face of non-voluntary compliance/enforce- ment by the party against whom interim relief is grant- ed, have to resort to courts seeking a court order or ruling granting enforcement of the interim relief grant- ed by the arbitral tribunal.
award and, as part of the dispositive part of the award, decide on the issue of allocation of costs between the disputing parties. In practice, arbitral tribunals rarely grant the winning party all its costs. It is common for arbitral tribunals to grant the winning party a portion of its costs. Hence, parties which pursue claims or counterclaims in arbitration are incentivised to effi- ciently manage their costs so as not to end up having to swallow a portion of such costs without being able to enforce all costs against the losing party. 4.7 Courts and ADR Egyptian courts have recently shown a tendency to limit nullifying arbitral awards except in situations where there exists a clear situation that substantiates the nullity of arbitral awards as exhaustively listed in the Egyptian Arbitration Law. While this is in line with the “pro-arbitration” image that local courts in many jurisdictions seek, the authors’ opinion is that Egyp- tian courts should approach each case with its own particulars; this is meant to guarantee that a balance is maintained between the need for protecting arbi- tration proceedings and the achievement of a legally sound conclusion to the relevant dispute. The regulation of legal fees in Egypt is quite flexible and, thus, leaves the matter to the agreement of the parties (ie, the lawyer and their client). Accordingly, the engagement of lawyers can be on the basis of fixed fee, pure success fee, or a hybrid arrangement comprising of a partial fixed fee and a success fee. However, contrary to the situation in arbitration, cost recovery in litigation is not an effective, realistic goal. Courts do not grant the winning party its costs or even a fraction thereof; thus, disputing parties have become accustomed to the idea that each party cov- ers its own costs. 5.2 Third-Party Funding 5. Costs, Fees and Funding 5.1 Legal Fees In the context of litigation, third-party funding is per- missible and does exist. Courts do not enquire about the sources of funding used by disputing parties and disputing parties themselves do not raise objections and/or issues concerning such matter. This contra-
4. Other ADR Methods 4.1 ADR Procedures
In Egypt, apart from litigation and arbitration, formal ADR procedures available for resolving commercial disputes include mediation and conciliation. 4.2 Requirements to Engage in ADR In Egypt, there are no formal requirements for parties to engage in ADR. Hence, only parties that have an adequate understanding of the potential benefits of resorting to ADR show interest in exploring these. 4.3 Impact of ADR This is not applicable in this jurisdiction. 4.4 Timing of ADR ADR usually takes place prior to the initiation of a dis- pute before courts or arbitration, or right after launch- ing a case before courts or arbitration but before any real progress is made in the litigation or arbitration case. Seeing that engaging in ADR does not stop limitation periods running, parties are incentivised to engage in ADR immediately after a dispute crystalises or, if the dispute has been in existence for some time, right after the lodging of a litigation or arbitration case (as the lodging of such a case would have the impact of causing running limitation periods to be interrupted/ Arbitration is confidential, and confidentiality is explic- itly provided for in the Egyptian Arbitration Law. Medi- ation and conciliation, on the hand, are not regulated by law and, thus, any confidentiality that is provided for in the rules of institutions are not perceived as being a real guarantee of confidentiality. 4.6 Costs In arbitration, each party is expected to cover their own costs until the arbitral tribunal issues its final suspended or cut-off). 4.5 Confidentiality
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