日本法院撤销仲裁裁决程序

更新时间：2018-01-23 11:42:05  张振安 临时仲裁ADA 编辑：lianluobu  点击次数：1339次

根据《日本仲裁法》（该法根据联合国国际贸易法委员会《国际商事仲裁示范法》为蓝本于2003年制定），在某些特定情况下，当事人可向法院请求撤销仲裁裁决。在该等撤销申请中，当事人经常会以《仲裁法》第44-1-8条款下的“仲裁裁决违反了日本公共政策”或以《仲裁法》第44-1-6条款下的“仲裁庭的组成或仲裁程序违反了日本的法律和法规”为由，主张撤销仲裁裁决。

近日，东京高等法院在某一案件中引用了第44-1-8条款和第44-1-6条款的解释，该案中X公司（上诉人）向日本法院提交了请求法院撤销一份根据《日本商事仲裁协会(JCAA)规则》作出的仲裁裁决之申请(Company X v Company Y, the Tokyo High Court, 2016 (RA) 497,August 19, 2016)。该案仲裁庭裁决X公司向Y公司（被上诉人）支付一定数额的金钱，以赔偿X公司因违反其与Y公司订立的分销协议项下的义务而造成的损害。之后，X公司提交了上述申请，声称（1）仲裁庭对经销协议的解释违反了欧盟竞争法，因此也违反了日本的公共政策，及（2）根据日本法律及经销协议的准据法，仲裁庭对举证责任的解释不公正，因此仲裁程序违反了日本的法律。然而，东京地方法院作出了驳回X公司申请的裁定，随后东京高等法院就X公司针对上述裁定提出的上诉作出了决定，并维持了东京地方法院作出的裁定。

收到不利仲裁裁决的当事人往往倾向于在日本法院尝试根据“违反公共政策”的原则撤销该等裁决。这些当事人也普遍会主张 “仲裁程序违反了日本的法律法规” 。《仲裁法》生效后的15年以来，日本法院已多次处理了关于撤销仲裁裁决时上述理由认可的程度问题。日本仲裁从业人员一直密切关注法院在这一问题上的解释，因为这将表明怎样的仲裁裁决可能被日本法院撤销，这也将严重影响到日本在世界上是否被视为“友好仲裁”的司法辖区。

我们设想，东京高等法院合理维持地区法院裁定所依据的观点是并非仲裁庭违反准据法或强制性法律均构成法院根据《仲裁法》撤销仲裁裁决的“公共政策”理由。更具体地说，根据《仲裁法》第44-1-8条规定，东京高等法院采取的立场是欧盟竞争法不应等同于日本的公共政策，仲裁庭对经销协议的错误解释仅是违反了强制法，并不必然违反日本公共政策。

此外，我们认为法院有必要合理限制“仲裁程序相关的问题”范围，以避免当事人可轻易尝试扩大该等问题的范围，从而容易基于《仲裁法》第44-1-6条规定的“仲裁程序违反了日本法律法规”之理由撤销仲裁裁决。当前案件中，在双方争论对举证责任的解释是否属于仲裁程序问题时，东京高等法院得出的合理结论是，它属于实体法中的问题，因此仲裁庭对举证责任的错误解释并不意味着仲裁程序违反了日本法律。

在日本，向法院提交撤销仲裁裁决申请的数量相对较少，即使法院对这一问题作出的裁定仅为1例，也会对《日本仲裁法》的解释和仲裁实践产生重大影响。从这个角度来看，东京高等法院在本案中作出的决定对巩固确立“公共政策”定义的合理解释以及对确定仲裁法关于撤销仲裁裁决之理由所依据的“与仲裁程序相关的问题”的范围作出了有意义的贡献，也因此在日本建立了更完善的仲裁实践。我们坚信，这一系列由日本法院作出的决定将进一步巩固日本作为友好仲裁司法辖区的地位，并期待吸引更多来自全球的实体企业在他们国际商业交易的仲裁协议中选择日本作为仲裁地。

[英文原文]

 

Setting Aside Arbitral Awards before Japanese Court:Consolidating Japan’s Position as an Arbitration-Friendly Jurisdiction?

Under the Japanese Arbitration Act, which was established based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration in 2003, parties may file a petition with a court requesting the court to set aside an arbitral award under certain circumstances. In such petition, parties frequently assert, among others, that “the terms of the arbitral award violated the public policy of Japan” under Article 44-1-8 of the Arbitration Act or that “the composition of the arbitral tribunal or arbitration proceeding violated Japanese laws and regulations” under Article 44-1-6 of the Arbitration Act, as grounds for setting aside the arbitral award.

Recently,the Tokyo High Court referred to the construction of Article 44-1-8 and Article44-1-6 in a case where Company X (an appellant) filed a petition with a courtin Japan, requesting the court to set aside an arbitral award that was rendered in accordance with the rules of the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association (JCAA) (Company X v Company Y, the Tokyo High Court, 2016 (RA) 497, August19, 2016). In this case, the arbitral tribunal rendered an arbitral award ordering X to pay Company Y (an appellee) a certain amount of money for, among others, compensation for damage arising from X’s breach of its obligations under a distributor agreement between X and Y. X filed the aforementioned petition, asserting that (1) the arbitral tribunal’s construction of the distributor agreement violated the EU competition law and therefore violated the public policy of Japan and (2) the arbitral tribunal’s construction of the burden of proof was not justified under Japanese law, the governing law of the distributor agreement, and therefore the arbitration proceeding violated Japanese law. However, the Tokyo District Court rendered a decision dismissing X’s petition and, in response to the appeal against such decision filed by X, the Tokyo High Court rendered a decision affirming the decision of the Tokyo District Court.

Parties who received an unfavorable arbitral award tend to make an attempt to set aside such award based on the theory of “a breach of public policy” before the Japanese courts. It is also common for such parties to argue that the“arbitration proceeding was in breach of Japanese laws and regulations.” Over the past 15 years since the Arbitration Act came into force, Japanese courts have had opportunities to deal with the issue regarding to what extent the aforementioned grounds should be accepted in determining whether to set aside arbitral awards. Japanese arbitration practitioners have been closely monitoring the court’s construction on this issue since it would indicate to what extent arbitral awards could be set aside by Japanese courts, which would seriously affect the issue as to whether or not Japan is considered as an “arbitration-friendly” jurisdiction in the world.

We envisage that the Tokyo High Court decision reasonably affirmed the district court decision based on a view that not all breaches of a governing law or mandatory laws by an arbitral tribunal constitute “public policy” grounds for the court to set aside an arbitral award under the Arbitration Act. More specifically, the Tokyo High Court took a position that the EU competition law should not constitute the public policy of Japan and the arbitral tribunal’s mere misconstruction of a distributor agreement in violation of mandatory laws would not necessarily constitute a breach of the public policy of Japan under Article 44-1-8 of the Arbitration Act.

Furthermore,we believe it is important for the court to reasonably limit the scope of “issues concerning arbitration proceeding” in order to avoid the situation where parties can readily make an attempt to expand the scope of such issues to make it easier to set aside arbitral awards based on the ground that the arbitration proceeding violated Japanese laws and regulations under Article 44-1-6 of the Arbitration Act. In the present case, while it was discussed by the parties whether or not the construction of the burden of proof is an issue of arbitration proceeding, the Tokyo High Court reasonably concluded that it is a matter of substantive law and therefore the arbitral tribunal’s misconstruction of the burden of proof does not mean that the arbitration proceeding violated Japanese laws.

In Japan, the number of petitions to set aside arbitral awards filed with the court is relatively small and even a single court decision on this issue would significantly affect the construction of the Arbitration Act and arbitration practice in Japan. From that perspective, the Tokyo High Court decision in the present case has made a meaningful contribution in solidifying a reasonable construction of the definition of “public policy” as well as the scope of the “issues concerning arbitration proceeding” in relation to the grounds for setting aside arbitral awards under the Arbitration Act and thereby establishing sophisticated arbitration practice in Japan. We firmly believe that a series of such decisions rendered by Japanese courts will further consolidate Japan’s position as an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction and is expected to attract global business entities to select Japan as the situs of arbitration in arbitration agreements in their international business transactions.

By Koki Yanagisawa,Takiko Kadono (Nagashima Ohno &Tsunematsu)