EGYPT Trends and Developments Contributed by: Samer Badran, Abdelrahman Mahdy, Abd El-Rahman Taha and Nancy Ashour, Badran Law Firm
mediation’s value as a method for amicably settling international commercial disputes. The Convention applies to written settlement agree - ments resulting from mediation that resolve a com - mercial dispute and that qualify as international, either due to the parties having their places of business in different states, or due to a substantial part of the resulting obligations or the subject matter most close - ly connected to the dispute being located in a state other than where the parties are based. The Convention defines mediation in a broad manner that covers any process in which a neutral third party helps parties reach an amicable settlement without imposing a binding decision on them, a definition wide enough to capture the eclectic variety of facilitated negotiation processes used in practice. States that ratify the Convention commit to enforcing qualifying settlement agreements through streamlined domestic court procedures, positioning mediation as a credible and enforceable alternative alongside arbi - tration and litigation. Egypt itself signed the Conven - tion on 13 January 2026, becoming its 59th signatory, which was a symbolically significant step for its ambi - tions as a regional dispute resolution hub. However, Egypt has not yet ratified the Convention, and ratifica - tion, together with the adoption of implementing leg - islation, remain necessary steps for the Convention’s tangible enforcement in Egypt. This gap – signing the Convention yet not ratifying it – is not merely procedural. Egypt does not possess a standalone legal or regulatory framework governing commercial mediation, and in the absence of provi - sions regulating either domestic or foreign mediation, settlement agreements produced through mediation derive their legal force not from any specific legal regime but from the general rules of contract, ie, the Egyptian Civil Code. This arrangement, however, proves insufficient when a party seeks to enforce a mediated obligation across multiple jurisdictions. However, this absence of a standalone mediation law does not mean that Egyptian law is entirely silent on mediation. Recognition of mediation is scattered across sector-specific statutes in a form that bears
little resemblance to the general contractual mecha - nism just described, or to what the Convention was designed to enforce. For instance, Article 8 of the Law Establishing the Economic Courts requires claimants to pass through the court’s “Preparation and Mediation” body for their case to proceed to trial, with only limited exclusions such as interim measures and criminal cases. Similarly, the new Labour Law No. 14 of 2025 requires collective labour disputes to undergo conciliation procedures first, referring unresolved disputes to a dedicated “Mediation and Arbitration Centre” before litigation may proceed. These mechanisms, however, reflect a fundamentally different image of mediation than either the contractu - al model mentioned above or the one the Convention contemplates; they show limitations to the essentially consensual characteristic of contractual mediation. 2. Arbitration Agreement in Know-How Transfer Agreements Party autonomy is often treated as a cornerstone of arbitration. Parties are generally free to select the law governing their contract and arbitration agreements regardless of where the contract is performed. Know- how transfer agreements under Egyptian law, how - ever, mark a clear departure from this principle. Article 87 (2) of the Egyptian Commercial Law No. 17 of 1999 mandates that disputes arising from know-how trans - fer agreements be settled in accordance with Egyptian law and expressly voids any agreement to the con - trary. In practice, this restriction extends beyond the choice of governing law to the arbitral seat itself: dis - putes under such contracts are not arbitrable unless both the substantive law is Egyptian and the arbitra - tion is seated in Egypt; choosing otherwise results in the annulment of the arbitration agreement. This restriction is not merely a dormant statutory pro - vision; it has been actively enforced by the Egyptian courts. On 17 November 2021, the Court of Cassation issued a decision in Case No. 10305/83 confirming that disputes arising from technology transfer agree - ments cannot be resolved through foreign-seated arbitration, and that any clause purporting to refer
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