France / 25 May 1983 / France, Cour de cassation / Société Maatschappij Voor Industríele Research en Ontwikkeling v. M. Lievremont et M. Cominassi / 82-11.699
| Country | France |
| Court | France, Cour de cassation (French Court of Cassation) |
| Date | 25 May 1983 |
| Parties | Société Maatschappij Voor Industríele Research en Ontwikkeling v. M. Lievremont et M. Cominassi |
| Case number | 82-11.699 |
| Applicable NYC Provisions | V | V(1) | V(1)(d) |
| Source |
Original decision obtained from the registry of the Cour de cassation |
| Summary | Under a contract dated 21 December 1977, two individuals sold various patents to a research company registered in the Netherlands (Maatschappij Voor Industrielle Research en Ontwikkeling B.V.). The agreement contained an arbitration clause. A dispute arose between the parties and the parties agreed in writing to settle their dispute through arbitration in Brussels. An award was rendered on 30 October 1980 in favor of the two individuals. The research company initiated an action to set aside the award before French Courts. The Cour d'appel de Paris dismissed the action for lack of admissibility due to the fact that under the legal regime prior to the 12 May 1981 Decree, only French awards could be set aside, which was not the case here since it was not established that French law governed the arbitral procedure. Appealing this decision, the research company argued that the parties had implicitly chosen French law as the law governing the arbitral procedure and thus, this was a domestic award, against which an action to set aside could be brought under French law. It argued further that the decision of the Cour d'appel de Paris was contrary to Article V(1)(d) NYC. The Cour de cassation (Supreme Court) upheld the lower courts' decision and dismissed the action. It held that the NYC, which aims at facilitating the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, is not applicable when the action does not aim at enforcing an arbitral award, as was the case here. It then reasoned that under the legal regime prior to the 1981 Decree, actions to set aside awards may only be brought against domestic awards and ruled that, in the case at hand, given that the research company had failed to establish that the parties had implicitly chosen French law as the law governing the arbitral procedure, the action to set aside an international arbitral award was not admissible. |
| see also : |
Attachment (1)
 Original Language Adobe Acrobat PDF |
