ROMANIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Cosmin Vasile and Violeta Saranciuc, Zamfirescu Racoți Vasile & Partners Attorneys At Law
tion. This referral was prompted by conflicting case law in the context of an increasing number of newly established non-governmental organisations func - tioning as small arbitral institutions in Romania and legitimacy concerns. In essence, the High Court has established that non- governmental organisations of public interest (NGOs) may administer institutional arbitration in Romania only if authorised by law to do so. The decision does not deal with the activity of inter - national or foreign arbitral institutions, and certainly will not apply to established institutions such as the ICC, VIAC and Swiss Chamber of Commerce (SCC), which are popular choices among Romanian arbitra - tion users. In fact, in the reasoning of the decision, recalling Romania’s long tradition of institutional arbi - tration, the High Court noted that Romania accepted the jurisdiction of international arbitration courts in commercial matters by ratifying, in 1963, the Euro - pean Convention on International Commercial Arbitra - tion of 21 April 1961. The decision also does not affect the activity of the Court of International Commercial Arbitration attached to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CACI), nor that of local arbitral institutions attached to the county chambers of commerce across Romania. The authority of the national and county chambers of commerce to establish arbitral institutions is provided in Law No 335/2007 on chambers of commerce in Romania. The Main Home-Based Arbitral Institution Has Modernised its Arbitration Rules The main local arbitral institution, CACI, has adopted a revised set of arbitration rules, in force as of 1 Janu - ary 2025. The main changes concern wider adoption of elec - tronic and remote means of conducting proceedings, and a shift in the approach of this arbitral institution to expert evidence, with party-appointed experts becoming the norm under the revised rules. Under the previous rules, tribunal-appointed experts were the default, unless the parties agreed otherwise.
Under the revised rules, the Romanian arbitral institu - tion aims to encourage the parties to organise hear - ings remotely as much as possible. The party request - ing an in-person appearance must provide reasons for such a request. This represents a great leap forward in the use of technology in international arbitration and will be appreciated by arbitration users that prefer online proceedings. With a pronounced preference for remote hearings, CACI now claims its place as one of the most forward-looking arbitral institutions in the region. The revised rules also aim to streamline proceedings by eliminating frequent procedural hearings, encour - aging arbitral tribunals to consult parties on procedur - al issues by using remote means of communication, including email. A number of changes aim to make the procedure more efficient and increase the importance of the case management conference organised at the beginning of the arbitration, when the procedural framework is discussed and the structure of the proceedings is decided. The revised rules also introduce the duty to disclose third-party funding. Along with the revision of its rules, CACI has also increased the arbitration costs for arbitrations con - ducted under its auspices. For claims valued in Euros, the minimum arbitrator fee for an amount in dispute below EUR20,000 is now EUR500 (as opposed to EUR400 in the previous fee scale), and the administra - tive fee of the institution is now EUR1,000 (as opposed to the previous amount of EUR800). At the opposite end of the scale, for claims exceeding EUR2 million, the fee per arbitrator is now EUR29,800 plus 0.4% of the amount in dispute exceeding EUR2 million, and the administrative fee is EUR30,300 plus 0.4% of the amount in dispute exceeding EUR2 million. The revision of the CACI rules is of particular interest in the Romanian public procurement infrastructure sec - tor, where model contracts concluded by contracting authorities with local and foreign contractors currently provide for the resolution of disputes through CACI arbitration. Hence, a large share of CACI’s caseload currently consists of high-stakes construction and infrastructure arbitrations involving state entities.
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