Originally From:
Arbitration Law and Practice in Central and Eastern Europe - Looseleaf
Arbitration Law and Practice in Central and Eastern Europe - Electronic
LATVIA - Preview Page
1. GENERAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK
1.1 National law
a) Current status
What is the current status? When was it enacted? Have there already been amendments?
The Saeima (Parliament) of the Republic of Latvia passed a new Civil Procedure Law (“CPL”) on 14 October 1998, which became effective on 1 March 1999. Chapter D of the CPL deals with arbitration. The latest amendments have been adopted by the Parliament of Latvia and became effective on 10 March 2005
in order to improve the procedure governing the activities and control of arbitral institutions. As a result of such amendments, two new regulations were introduced by the Cabinet of Ministers, namely, “On the Register of Arbitration Institutions”1 and “On the State Fee for Entering the Arbitration Institution in the Register,2 which determines the proper procedure in accordance with which arbitration institutions shall be
registered in the Enterprise Register. Previously, any new arbitral institution had to notify the Ministry of Justice, which maintained the list of arbitral institutions. No other limitations were set forth and therefore approximately 128 arbitral institutions were on the list of the Ministry of Justice3 before the enactment of these amendments.
In accordance with the new amendments, all arbitral institutions that are on the list of the Ministry of Justice shall be registered with the Enterprise Register until 15 August 2005.4 After that date, the following rule applies: if the parties have agreed to settle their dispute through a permanent arbitral institution and this institution has not been registered with the Enterprise Register or has terminated its operation, the parties
shall agree to settle the dispute in another registered arbitral institution and if such agreement is not achieved, the dispute shall be settled in court.5
About the Authors:
Ziedonis Udris (Latvia) is the Chairman of the Council of Arbitration of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a Managing Partner of the Law Office Skudra & Udris.
Inga Kačevska (Latvia) is Attorney at Law in the Law Office of Skudra & Udris.
