COLOMBIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Juan Mendoza, Manuela Hernández Contreras, Andres Parra and Daniel Munera, DRET
13.3 Third-Party Funding Law 1563 does not regulate third-party funding. Colombia has no specific legislation on the subject, and no significant case law has yet addressed its impli - cations for international arbitration. In the absence of a rule, there is no express legal restriction for funders – though funding arrangements can still raise questions of conflicts of interest and disclosure that a tribunal may need to address on a case-by-case basis. 13.4 Consolidation Law 1563 contains no provisions on consolidating separate arbitral proceedings. Consolidation is only possible if the parties have agreed to it themselves, or if the institutional rules governing arbitration allow for it – Article 10 of the ICC Arbitration Rules, for example. 13.5 Binding of Third Parties The circumstances under which a non-signatory can be bound to an arbitration agreement are addressed in 5.6 Jurisdiction Over Third Parties . Those same limits – no general statutory mechanism, a narrow guarantee-based exception, and an emerging but still arbitral (not yet judicial) “group of companies” doc - trine – apply equally here. What is worth adding is a distinct, narrower point: Colombian courts have no authority to bind a foreign non-signatory to an award after the fact. International arbitral awards only produce effects between the par - ties to the arbitration itself; there is no legal basis for a Colombian judge to extend those effects to a foreign third party that was never brought into the arbitration and never had the opportunity to be heard.
A recognition judge, for their part, cannot review the substance of the award to check whether it matches Colombian law – recognition is not an occasion to re- examine the merits. Once an award is recognised, it is treated as a judicial decision enforceable in Colombia like any other. Enforcement then follows Colombia’s ordinary rules for enforcing a court ruling, where the debtor’s only available defence is payment of the debt. 13. Miscellaneous 13.1 Class Action or Group Arbitration Law 1563 does not provide for class or collective arbi - tration. Colombia has no enabling framework for this kind of procedure in the arbitral setting, which in prac - tice represents a real limitation on group claims being resolved through arbitration rather than the ordinary courts. 13.2 Ethical Codes Arbitrators are bound by a continuing legal duty to disclose any circumstance that could compromise their impartiality or independence, running from their appointment through to the award itself. In practice, institutional arbitrations also follow the administering institution’s own ethical code – the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest, for example, are widely used as a reference. Colombian lawyers are additionally bound by the Lawyer’s Disciplinary Code (Law 1123 of 2007), though foreign counsel appearing in an international arbitration seated in Colombia are not subject to that Colombian-specific regime.
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