GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Vassilios Moussas, Charalampos Kondis, Christina Grigoriadou and Konstantina Margariti, Moussas & Partners
(b) any place where a substantial part of the obligations of the commercial relationship is to be performed or the place with which the subject matter of the dispute is most closely connected; or • the parties have explicitly agreed that IAL applies to that arbitration. There is no universally accepted definition as to the commercial aspect of an international com- mercial arbitration. As such, arbitration is mainly considered to be commercial when the dispute in question involves a transactional or economic matter. Greece signed and ratified the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforce- ment of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the “New York Convention”) pursuant to Legislative Decree No 4220/1961 (and IAL provides for this). The New York Convention entered into force in Greece on 14 October 1962. Greece has made two reservations under Article 1(3) of the New York Convention, namely that it applies exclusively to: • arbitral awards issued in another contracting state; and • awards issued on disputes of a commercial nature. 13.2 Subject Matters Not Referred to Arbitration As per the GCCP on domestic arbitration, any private legal dispute is arbitrable in principle if its subject matter can be freely resolved between the parties. Any type of dispute failing to fulfil these prerequisites is not arbitrable. Non-arbitrable include disputes include those that:
• relate to the personal status of individuals (eg, marital disputes and disputes between parents and children); • fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of other adjudication bodies (eg, cases concerning the violation of competition rules will be heard by the Competition Commission); • arise from collective bargaining agreements; or • arise between: (a) employers and employees; (b) professionals and small and medium- sized entities (or between these entities and their clients) regarding work per- formed or goods manufactured; and (c) social security institutions and the insured, unless these disputes are of a commercial nature (to be determined on a case-by-case basis). Disputes concerning IP, antitrust, competition, securities and intracompany issues are not arbi- trable if they relate to matters that cannot be freely resolved between the parties (eg, register- ing a trade mark or patent); however, they are in other respects (eg, claims for compensation). There are also special statutory provisions, especially in investment incentive laws, which allow matters that otherwise cannot be freely resolved between the parties to be submitted to arbitration – for example, tax disputes between the state and the investor. IAL establishes the general principle that all disputes are in principle arbitrable, unless pro- hibited by law. This provision therefore creates a presumption of arbitrability for all disputes, unless applicable law explicitly excludes a par- ticular dispute, or category of disputes, from being subject to arbitration.
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