EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Ahmed Kotb, Mohamed Ehab, Mohamed Sameh and Yasmine ElSakka, Khodeir & Partners
law does not conflict with the rules of Egyptian public policy (Court of Cassation, Challenge No. 1259 of JY 49, dated 13 June 1983). The Egyptian courts, so long as the requirements of an arbitration agreement are fulfilled, uphold the “pacta sunt servanda” principle, and respect the parties’ will and agreement to resort to arbitration. In this respect, the Economic Court ruled that if one of the parties to the arbitration agreement upholds this agreement as the way accepted by the parties to settle disputes arising between them in connec - tion with the implementation of their contractual or non-contractual obligations and proves the existence of this agreement, and the agreement fulfils the legal requirements for its enforcement, the Court must render the case inadmissible if the defendant pleads the above before making any claims or defence in the case (Economic Court, decision No. 145 of 2009, dated 29 December 2009). This is further confirmed by the Court of Cassation, which held that if the defendant presents claims or defences before raising this objection, it is considered that it has implicitly accepted the court’s jurisdiction and thereby waived its right to enforce the arbitration agreement (Court of Cassation, Challenge No. 6014 of JY 88, dated 15 March 2023). 3.4 Validity Egyptian law applies the rule of separability to arbitra - tion clauses contained in invalid agreements; that is to say, an arbitration clause may be still valid even if the remainder of the contract is not. According to Article 23 of the EAL, the arbitration clause is deemed inde - pendent and separate from the other, invalid clauses of the contract; therefore, it is not affected by the inva - lidity, rescission or termination of the contract.
requirements, the arbitrator must be a natural person who has full legal capacity and has not been deprived of his/her civil rights due to a conviction for a felony or dishonourable misdemeanour, or due to bankruptcy, unless he/she has been legally rehabilitated. Other than that, there is no limitation as to gender, nationality, religion, expertise or education of the arbi - trators selected by the parties. 4.2 Default Procedures In ad hoc arbitrations, in the absence of an agree - ment between the parties on a method for appointing arbitrators, or in the event that the agreed method fails, the EAL provides for default procedures as per Articles 15 and 17 thereof. Article 15 of the EAL provides that the agreed num - ber of arbitrators shall be an odd number and, in the absence of an agreement between the parties on the number of arbitrators to be appointed, the number shall be three. Article 17 of the EAL provides the default procedure in the event that (a) the parties agreed to appoint one (sole) arbitrator or (b) the parties agreed to select three arbitrators. In the event of (a) above, the competent court under - takes the appointment of the arbitrator upon the request of either party. In the case of international commercial arbitration, whether conducted in Egypt or abroad, the competent court shall automatically be the Cairo Court of Appeal unless the parties agree otherwise. In the event of (b) above, each party shall appoint one arbitrator, and the two appointed arbitrators shall appoint the chairperson. If a party fails to appoint an arbitrator, or if the arbitrators fail to appoint the presid - ing arbitrator within 30 days of the request, the com - petent court may intervene and make the appointment upon either party’s request. The same rules shall apply where the arbitral tribunal consists of more than three arbitrators. In institutional arbitrations, the rules of the institution agreed upon by the parties provide the method of
4. The Arbitral Tribunal 4.1 Limits on Selection
The EAL does not set limits on the parties’ autonomy to select arbitrators; however, Article 16 thereof sets out the requirements that should be fulfilled by the arbitrator selected by each party. According to these
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