KAZAKHSTAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Sergei Vataev, Ilya Kirichenko and Yelena Dvoretskaya-Yussupova, Legit Advocates‚ Bureau
particular, an application to the Court for the setting aside of an arbitral award made in the AIFC can only be made on the grounds listed in the AIFC Arbitration Regulations 2017, which repeat verbatim Article V of the 1958 New York Convention. The time limit for such a request to the AIFC Court is three months from the date on which the party making such request received the arbitral award, or more than three months, if the parties to the arbitra - tion have agreed this in writing, or, if the request has been made, in connection with the need to correct or make an interpretation of the award, or to make an additional award, from the date on which the request was rejected by the arbitral tribunal. The AIFC Court has the power to stay the proceedings for the setting aside of the award in order to enable the arbitral tribunal to resume the proceedings and to take such other measures as, in the discretion of the arbitral tribunal, may remove the grounds for setting aside the award. 11.2 Excluding/Expanding the Scope of Appeal Kazakhstan’s legislation does not address this issue. Theoretically, a party could include a prohibition or waiver in the contract to prevent the setting aside of the award, but implementing this in practice is likely to be very problematic. An attempt to contractually exclude some of the grounds for setting aside or expand the list thereof may be unenforceable, as it may be viewed as con -
came into force for Kazakhstan on 18 February 1996. Some academic opinions suggest that accession via a presidential decree is not the proper form, and that formal “ratification” by the legislature is required. How - ever, these discussions are mostly theoretical, and in practice, the Convention is applied and observed. Kazakhstan is also a party to the 1961 European Con - vention on International Commercial Arbitration. 12.2 Enforcement Procedure An application for the issuance of an execution writ must be filed within three years from issuance of the award. The enforcement procedure is provided in the Civil Procedure Code and the Law on Arbitration. If an arbitration award is not executed voluntarily within the period established in it, the award creditor may apply to the first instance court with an applica - tion for enforcement of the arbitration award either (1) at the place of the seat of arbitration or (2) at the place of residence of the debtor (or at the location of the executive body of the legal entity), or (3) if the place of residence or location of the executive body is unknown, then at the location of the debtor’s property. The application for the issuance of the execution writ must be accompanied by: (1) the original or a copy of the arbitration award (a copy of the award issued by a permanent arbitration institution must be certified by the head of this institution; a copy of an ad hoc arbitration award must be notarised), and (2) an origi - nal or notarised copy of the arbitration agreement. A failure to attach these documents entails rejection of the application. The requirements for application for the execution writ are the same for both domestic and international arbitral awards. The grounds for refusal of issuance of the execution writ as established by Kazakhstan law and those list - ed in the 1958 New York Convention differ. General Kazakhstan law expands the grounds for refusal to enforce the award listed in Article V of the 1958 New York Convention by two additional grounds: (1) if the award is made on a dispute not covered by the arbitra - tion agreement or not subject to its terms, or contains rulings on issues beyond the scope of the arbitration
trary to imperative legal requirements. 11.3 Standard of Judicial Review
In Kazakhstan, the law strictly prohibits an appeal court from reviewing the merits of an arbitration award; therefore, applicable judicial review standards are in place.
12. Enforcement of an Award 12.1 New York Convention
Kazakhstan acceded to the 1958 New York Conven - tion through a presidential decree; the Convention
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