INDONESIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Emir Nurmansyah, Ulyarta Naibaho, Adithya Lesmana and Adrian Panata, ABNR Counsellors at Law
• the parties have agreed to withdraw their dispute from arbitration. The law specifies that the death of one of the par - ties does not in itself affect the arbitration procedure, although the term of office of arbitrators will automati - cally be extended by 60 days in such an event. 4.3 Court Intervention During the appointment process, the court can inter - vene in the selection of arbitrators if: • one of the events described in Article 13 of the Arbitration Law occurs (see 4.2 Default Proce- dures ); or • a recusal filed by one party is objected to by the other party or parties, or the member of the arbitral tribunal concerned fails to step down. Thereafter, the court can only address the issue of the jurisdiction and competence of an arbitral tribu - nal within the framework of enforcement of the award through a writ of execution (exequatur). 4.4 Challenge and Removal of Arbitrators Section III of the Arbitration Law and Articles 4–5 of Supreme Court Reg No 3/2023 stipulate the provi - sions governing the challenge or removal of arbitra - tors, and contain the requirements for a challenge or removal of members of an arbitral tribunal by the par - ties or by the chair of the district court. A request to recuse members of an arbitral tribunal can be filed with the relevant district court if: • there is sufficient cause or authentic evidence that raises doubt as to whether the arbitrator will per - form the task independently, neutrally and impar - tially when rendering an award; or • it is proven that the arbitrator has a family, work or financial relationship with one or more of the par - ties or their legal counsel. 4.5 Arbitrator Requirements Under the Arbitration Law, each member of the arbitral tribunal must be independent, neutral and impartial, as outlined in 4.1 Limits on Selection , but there are no specific references to the requirement for independ -
ence, impartiality and/or disclosure of a potential con - flict. BANI has adopted a similar requirement, yet it also does not have specific references. If the appointment of arbitrators is complete, then an arbitrator cannot be released from their duties other than with the agreement of the disputing parties. If the parties agree, then the arbitrator is released. If they disagree, the issue of the release can be submitted to the district court chair for final decision. An arbitral tribunal is authorised to rule on a party’s challenge to the tribunal’s jurisdiction (the compe - tence-competence principle). The principle is gener - ally accepted even though the Arbitration Law does not specifically confirm it. The applicability of this principle can be inferred from Articles 3 and 11 of the Arbitration Law. Article 3 requires the courts to refer disputes arising out of a contract (that has an arbitra - tion clause) to arbitration instead of assuming juris - diction, and Article 11 states that parties to a written arbitration agreement are no longer entitled to initiate litigation proceedings in court. Several Indonesian arbitration institutions incorporate this principle specifically into their arbitration rules, such as Article 17 of the 2025 BANI Rules. 5.2 Circumstances for Court Intervention The Arbitration Law does not allow the courts to address the issue of the jurisdiction of an arbitral tri - bunal. It does set out the limited involvement of the courts, such as: • the appointment, discharge and recusal of an arbitrator; • the registration and issuance of exequatur for an arbitral award; and • the annulment of an arbitral award. 5. Jurisdiction 5.1 Challenges to Jurisdiction However, as this is limited, the courts tend to be reluc - tant to intervene in questions relating to the jurisdic - tion of arbitral tribunals.
460 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook