UZBEKISTAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Sherzod Abdulkasimov, Nazokat Kamilova and Navruza Yunusova, PraeLegal Uzbekistan
a default, with the competent economic court as appointing authority of last resort. Under Article 16, in a three-member tribunal, each party appoints one arbitrator and the two appoint the third (chair); if a party fails to appoint an arbitrator within 30 days of the other’s request, or the two fail to agree on the third within 30 days of their appointment, the court makes the appointment on either party’s application. Where a sole arbitrator is chosen but not agreed, the court likewise makes the appointment. The court’s appoint - ment is final and not subject to appeal. In exercising this function, the court acts within the supportive role assigned by the ICA Law – the com - petent court identified by Article 9, and judicial inter - vention confined by Article 8 to matters for which the ICA Law provides. The procedural mechanics of an appointment application are governed by the EP Code. The position under the Law on Domestic Arbitration is materially different. It contemplates two forms of domestic arbitration – permanent (institutional) and ad hoc. For a permanent arbitration court, the insti - tution’s rules govern constitution and the fallback appointment. For ad hoc domestic arbitration, there is no equivalent court-appointment backstop: the state courts do not appoint, so a failure to constitute the tribunal means the arbitration cannot proceed and the dispute reverts to the courts. Eligibility is in any event more tightly circumscribed than under the ICA Law. Neither regime provides a bespoke default for multi - party arbitrations; the gap is filled by any institutional rules the parties have adopted. In the absence of such rules, an international arbitration falls back on the court-appointment power under Article 16 of the ICA Law read with the EP Code, whereas an ad hoc domestic arbitration has no comparable safeguard. 4.3 Court Intervention The power of a court to intervene in constituting the tribunal is a feature of the international regime alone: conferred by Article 16 of the ICA Law, it is available only for an international commercial arbitration seated in Uzbekistan and does not extend to domestic arbi - tration, which has no equivalent court-appointment
backstop. The discussion below concerns ICA Law arbitrations. Within that regime, the court’s involvement is confined to assisting where the agreed appointment mecha - nism has failed – a party’s default, deadlock between the co-arbitrators or over a sole arbitrator, or a default - ing appointing institution – in which case Article 16 empowers the competent economic court to appoint on a party’s application. The court’s role is facilitative, not supervisory. That power is subject to real limitations. Consistent with Article 8 of the ICA Law, the court acts only as the ICA Law expressly provides, only where the seat is in Uzbekistan, and only on a party’s application, never on its own motion. In appointing, it must have regard to any qualifications the parties stipulated and to securing an independent and impartial arbitrator, and, for a sole or presiding arbitrator, to the advis - ability of a nationality. Its decision is final. This power was recently applied by the Tashkent City Court on 26 December 2025. The claimant sought appointment of a sole arbitrator under Article 232 of the EP Code and Article 16 of the ICA Law after the parties failed to agree and the claimant challenged the composition of the TIAC Court of Arbitration, which had changed three times in a month and then included no local arbitrators, contrary to the institution’s rules. Rejecting the respondent’s argument that appoint - ment should be left to TIAC, the court held that where the parties cannot agree and the institutional mecha - nism is itself in doubt, the competent court may make the appointment directly, and appointed the claimant’s nominee – an arbitrator of established international standing – applying the statutory standards of inde - pendence, impartiality and professional competence. 4.4 Challenge and Removal of Arbitrators Both the international and domestic arbitration regimes contain express provisions on the challenge and removal of arbitrators, though they differ in their machinery. Under the ICA Law, the starting point is the duty of disclosure in Article 17: a person approached for appointment must disclose any circumstances likely
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