Beijing Arbitration Commission, Arbitration Rules

Issued: April 25 2001
Effective: August 1 2001

Main contents: The Rules contain 107 articles and are divided into 10 parts. The major parts are: arbitration agreement (Part Two); application and acceptance (Part Three); composition of arbitration tribunal (Part Four); hearing and award (Part Five); summary procedures (Part Six); special provisions for arbitration of foreign related disputes (Part Seven); suspension and termination of arbitration (Part Eight); and time limits and service of process (Part Nine).
The Rules state that Beijing Arbitration Commission (hereafter, the Commission) does not accept (1) marital, adoption, guardianship, support and succession disputes, (2) administrative disputes that laws require be handled by administrative authorities, and (3) labour disputes and disputes within the agricultural collective economic organizations over contracted management in agriculture. An application for arbitration by the commission shall be based on an arbitration agreement, without which the application will not be accepted (Article 6). An arbitration agreement may be concluded after the occurrence of a dispute, but it must express the intention of the parties to submit the dispute to the Commission for arbitration, otherwise the Commission will not accept the case (Article 7).
The parties to the dispute always have the option to have the dispute decided under summary procedure. However, unless otherwise agreed upon by the parties, where the amount of claim in the dispute is less than Rmb500,000, summary procedure shall apply (Articles 71 and 72).
Where the dispute is foreign-related, as determined by the Commission, more time will be given to the parties to submit written defence and counter claim (if any) than in the case of a non-foreign-related dispute (Articles 83 and 84). If one party fails to perform the arbitral award, the other party may apply to the Chinese court for enforcement of the arbitral award pursuant to Chinese law or apply to the competent foreign court for enforcement of the arbitral award according to the 1958 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards or other international treaties that China has concluded or acceded to (Article 93).
Related legislation: PRC, Arbitration Law, Aug 31 1994, CLP 1994 No.9 p23 and PRC Civil Procedure Law (2nd Revision)