Egypt / 29 January 2003 / Cairo Court of Appeal / Abdel Hakim Esmat El Sadat v. EPA Invest A/S / 40/114
| Country | Egypt |
| Court | Egypt, Cairo Court of Appeal |
| Date | 29 January 2003 |
| Parties | Abdel Hakim Esmat El Sadat v. EPA Invest A/S |
| Case number | 40/114 |
| Applicable NYC Provisions | V | V(1)(e) |
| Languages | English |
| Summary | On 15 September 1997, a Danish arbitral tribunal issued an award in favor of EPA Invest (“EPA”) against Hakim Company for Trade and Maritime Consultations (“Hakim”). Abdel Hakim Esmat El Sadat filed a lawsuit before the Cairo Court of Appeal in his capacity as a former shareholder and director of Hakim, requesting suspension of the enforcement of the award and seeking to have it set aside. EPA objected to the jurisdiction of the Cairo Court of Appeal, arguing that the Parties had not agreed on the application of the Egyptian Arbitration Law. The Cairo Court of Appeal accepted EPA’s jurisdictional objection and declined jurisdiction. It noted that the application of the Egyptian Arbitration Law is limited by Article 1 to arbitration proceedings held in Egypt and international arbitration proceedings which the parties had agreed to submit to the Egyptian Arbitration Law. The Court added that limiting the jurisdiction of State Courts to set aside only arbitral awards issued within the State’s territory is a general principle recognized by the majority of modern arbitration laws, as well as by international conventions such as the NYC, which, in Article V(1)(e) NYC, links foreign arbitral awards to the legal regime of the State where they were issued and provides that only the courts of that State have jurisdiction to rule on requests for setting aside the awards. As the arbitral award was issued in Copenhagen and there was no evidence to suggest that the Parties had agreed to apply the Egyptian Arbitration Law, the Court concluded that the arbitration between the Parties was not subject to the Egyptian Arbitration Law and Egyptian Courts lacked jurisdiction to rule on requests for setting aside the award. Accordingly, the Cairo Court of Appeal held that it lacked jurisdiction to rule on the challenge made by Abdel Hakim Esmat El Sadat. |
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