UKRAINE Law and Practice Contributed by: Olena Perepelynska, Krystyna Khripkova, Nadiya Mykiyevych and Anna Kozyrieva, IMPACTA LAW
arbitration agreement. There is a tendency to treat the law governing the arbitration agreement as a separate issue from the law governing the main contract, in line with the principle of separability. However, in some cases the courts applied the law of the main contract to the arbitration agreement. The parties are free to choose the governing law expressly and where they do not, the law of the seat of arbitration is generally given weight as the applicable law (see Articles 34 (2) (1) and 36 (1)(1) of the ICA Law). The parties are free to agree on the place of arbitration pursuant to Article 20 of the ICA Law. Article 22 (3) of the ComPCU states that any ambi - guities in the wording of an arbitration agreement and any doubts as to its validity, effectiveness, or enforce - ability shall be interpreted by the court in favour of upholding its validity, effectiveness and enforceability. Where an action is brought before a Ukrainian court in a matter subject to an arbitration agreement, the court shall leave the claim without consideration and refer the parties to arbitration. The court is exempt from doing so if it finds that the parties’ agreement is null and void, inoperative or incapable of being per - formed. Thus, the overall position of Ukrainian courts is pro-arbitration and enforcement-oriented; however, depending on the facts of individual cases, some arbi - tration agreements may be found unenforceable. The Supreme Court, in its Judgment in case No 924/389/25 dated 19 November 2025, stated that courts may interpret ambiguous or inconsistent word - ing in arbitration agreements in a manner that upholds them and consider the parties’ intention to resolve their dispute through arbitration. Courts should inter - pret minor errors and inaccuracies in the designation of the arbitral institution contained in an arbitration agreement in a manner that gives effect to the parties’ intention to resolve their disputes through internation - al commercial arbitration. However, the determination of whether an arbitration agreement is enforceable or unenforceable due to errors in designating the arbitral institution remains within the court’s discretion, to be exercised in light of the particular circumstances of the case. At the same time, in the present case, the arbi - tration clause did not specify the rules of arbitration, the arbitral institution, or even the country in which the dispute could have been resolved. The Supreme Court
confirmed that the arbitration clause was drafted in an ambiguous manner and failed to specify the place of arbitration, rendering it unenforceable; therefore, the jurisdiction over the present dispute lay with the first- instance commercial court in Ukraine. 3.4 Validity Ukrainian law applies the rule of separability to arbi - tration agreements, including to arbitration clauses contained in invalid agreements. In its judgment in Case No 911/2618/25 dated 12 February 2026, the Supreme Court confirmed that, under the principle of separability, the invalidity of the main contract does not in itself affect the valid - ity of the arbitration agreement contained in it. The arbitration clause is treated as a separate agreement, ensuring that disputes, including those concerning the contract’s validity, remain subject to arbitration unless expressly excluded by the parties. This prevents a party from avoiding arbitration by alleging that the underlying contract is invalid. Accordingly, the invalid - ity of the main contract does not automatically render the arbitration agreement invalid. The ICA Law recognises party autonomy in the selec - tion of arbitrators, allowing parties to agree on both the number of arbitrators and the appointment pro - cedure. In practice, however, institutional arbitrations before the ICAC and the MAC may be subject to some limitations, as arbitrators are generally appointed from the institutions’ recommended lists. 4.2 Default Procedures Under Article 10 (2) of the ICA Law, in the absence of agreement between the parties on the number of arbitrators, three arbitrators shall be appointed. If the parties fail to agree on the procedure of appointment, then, pursuant to Article 11 (3) of the ICA Law: • in a three-member tribunal, each party appoints one arbitrator and the two appointed arbitrators select the third arbitrator; if a party fails to appoint its arbitrator within 30 days of receiving a request 4. The Arbitral Tribunal 4.1 Limits on Selection
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