Judgment of Supreme Court, Civil Chamber

11 April 2002

Case No. III CKN 492/01

Grounds for vacating arbitration award

1. The state court reviews the case only from the perspective of the grounds for vacating an award, which are exhaustively listed in Civil Procedure Code Art. 712 (now Art. 1206). Given the nature of a petition to vacate an arbitration award, the state court with jurisdiction to hear the petition may not review the merits of the dispute, because is issuing an award the arbitration court is not bound by substantive or procedural law, so long as it does not violate the principle of lawfulness or social coexistence. This means that the state court will not examine whether the arbitration award is contrary to substantive law or is justified by the facts set forth in the award, or whether the facts were correctly determined.

2. A petition to vacate an arbitration award cannot reopen the merits of the dispute that have now been reduced to an award. In a proceeding to vacate an arbitration award, the findings of the arbitration court challenged by the petitioner, concerning the terms of the parties' contract or the means of performance of the contract, cannot serve as the basis for vacating the award because they generally beyond the review of the state court, and cannot be found to be in violation of the principle of lawfulness.