ROMANIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Cosmin Vasile and Violeta Saranciuc, Zamfirescu Racoți Vasile & Partners
1. General 1.1 Prevalence of Arbitration
International arbitration is currently carried out under the auspices of the ICC, the Vienna International Arbi - tral Centre (VIAC), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC), but also under those of German (the German Arbitration Institute – Deutsche Institution für Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit ; DIS) and Italian institutions of arbitration. 1.2 Key Industries The majority of international arbitration cases involve construction disputes in the context mentioned in 1.1 Prevalence of Arbitration , but various other contrac - tual disputes are also referred to international arbitra - tion, including a significantly rising number of energy- related disputes (in the context of the post-pandemic political context and the ongoing energy crisis). 1.3 Arbitration Institutions The most frequently used international arbitral institu - tions in Romania are the ICC, mostly for international arbitrations seated in Romania or disputes with an international component, and CICA, mainly for local arbitral disputes. VIAC has become also an increas - ingly popular choice in Romania in the past several years. No new arbitral institutions have been established in Romania in the past year. On the contrary, the num - ber of arbitral institutions has decreased in the last year after the Romanian High Court issued a binding interpretation decision limiting the types of Romanian entities that can administer arbitration in Romania. 1.4 National Courts There are no national courts that only hear disputes related to international or domestic arbitration mat - ters. The national courts’ intervention is limited to adjudicating claims aimed at removing impediments arising during the organisation phase or the arbitration itself (eg, aiding the process of appointing arbitrators, as detailed in 4.3 Court Intervention , or challenging arbitrators), or to other applications such as issuing interim measures to aid the arbitral proceedings or granting protective measures and interim relief, at the parties’ request, before or during the arbitral proceed - ings. Such applications are adjudicated by the local court (tribunal) whose jurisdiction covers the seat of
International arbitration is well established in Roma - nia and has experienced steady growth since 2014, with a more or less constant rise in the number of arbitration cases per year. Its increasing use predom - inantly results from disputes related to the various infrastructure projects started by the public authori - ties in Romania with the help of European financing (from pre-adhesion and post-adhesion funds and, most recently, from the funds associated with the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Romania). The con - tracts concluded for these projects generally follow the International Federation of Consulting Engineers ( Fédération Internationale Des Ingénieurs - Conseils ; FIDIC) general conditions of contract, which include the standard International Chamber of Commerce arbitration clause. Starting in 2018, important legislative amendments were adopted covering a broad category of publicly financed projects subject to public procurement pro - cedures. This led to the replacement of the FIDIC gen - eral conditions of contract with new forms of public procurement contracts that are mandatory for public works. The new conditions of contract bring signifi - cant changes to the claims/dispute resolution proce - dure, including referral of the dispute to the national arbitration court – the Court of International Com - mercial Arbitration attached to the Chamber of Com - merce and Industry of Romania (CICA) – as the arbitral institution within the standard arbitration clause (thus replacing the jurisdiction of the ICC International Court of Arbitration (ICC), which was applicable under the former FIDIC general conditions of contract). CICA is currently the most frequently used and most important international arbitration institution in Roma - nia. Its 2025 Rules of Arbitration align with the existing rules of international arbitral institutions, and seek to enhance the flexibility and efficiency of arbitration in Romania while at the same time sidestepping the for - malism of domestic courts. This change has helped maintain the steady growth trend of national and inter - national arbitration before CICA.
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