ROMANIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Cosmin Vasile and Alina Tugearu, Zamfirescu Racoți Vasile & Partners Attorneys At Law
As the new Civil Code, which came into force in Octo- ber 2011, repealed the former Commercial Code of Romania of 1887, in the absence of a specific body of law regulating commercial relationships, the concept should be construed broadly in the context of interna- tional arbitration as encompassing relationships that are commercial in nature (whether contractual or not). 13.2 Subject Matters Not Referred to Arbitration As a matter of principle, all disputes are arbitrable, unless there is a legal provision that states otherwise. As far as national arbitration is concerned, the follow- ing matters are exempt from arbitration: • civil status litigation; • litigation with respect to the legal capacity of per- sons; • inheritance litigation; • matters arising out of, or in connection with, family relations; and • litigation regarding rights that the parties cannot dispose of (eg, in labour and employment law mat- ters where the law expressly provides that a party cannot waive the legal rights established in their favour). 13.3 Circumstances to Challenge an Arbitral Award Set-aside claims may be asserted by the parties on the following limited grounds: • the dispute was non-arbitrable; • the arbitration agreement did not exist or was inva- lid/ineffective; • the arbitral tribunal was not properly constituted; • the claimant in the set-aside claim was absent and was not duly notified of the hearing when the main arguments were heard; • the award was rendered after the expiry of the time limit; • the award granted something that was not request- ed (ultra petita) or granted more than was request- ed (plus petita); • the award failed to mention the tribunal’s decision on the relief sought and did not include the reason-
ing, the date or place of the decision or the signa- tures of the arbitrators; • the award violated public policy, mandatory legal provisions or morality; or • the Constitutional Court has declared the legal provisions relied on in the award to be unconstitu- tional. 13.4 Procedure for Enforcing Domestic and Foreign Arbitration Domestic arbitral awards are treated and enforced in the same way as court decisions, whereas foreign arbitral awards are subject to recognition and enforce- ment proceedings before the Romanian courts. As a matter of principle, any foreign arbitral award is rec- ognised and may be enforced in Romania as long as the dispute is arbitrable according to Romanian law and the award does not comprise measures that are contrary to the public order of Romanian private inter- national law. In order for the recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award to be granted, the parties must comply with certain formal requirements – they must file a request to this effect before a competent court and attach legalised or apostilled certified copies of the translated award and arbitration agreement. The court vested with hearing a request for the recogni- tion and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award is prohibited from reviewing the merits of the dispute, with its examination being limited to the grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement, as set out in the Code of Civil Procedure. These grounds follow those established in the New York Convention, such as the parties not having the capacity to conclude the arbitration agreement or the arbitration agreement not being valid. 14. Outlook 14.1 Proposals for Dispute Resolution Reform Currently, there are no proposals for dispute resolution reform, given that the last major reform of the Civil Procedure Code was in 2018.
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