New law assures ‘quick, transparent’ arbitration process, says official

The new arbitration law assures investors in Qatar of a “quick, impartial, and transparent” process in resolving issues affecting companies doing business in the country, thus improving the country’s investment climate, an official has said.“This is a very long-awaited law; everybody in Qatar – from the academics, arbitration users, and lawyers – was waiting for this law, which replaces some old articles from 1990,” said Qatar International Centre for Conciliation & Arbitration (QICCA) board member Sheikh Thani bin Ali bin Saud AZ al-Thani.The QICCA official was referring to Law No 2 of 2017 or the ‘Arbitration Law for Civil and Commercial Matters’, which was recently-approved by HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.Sheikh Thani said the new law consists of 38 articles instead of 21 under the old law and “reflects the same trends of international arbitration processes and rules.” It, he explained, “is largely based” on the Uncitral Arbitration Model Law, a UN-recognised core legal body in the field of international trade law.QICCA deputy secretary general Ebrahim Mohamed Shalbeck stressed that the new law provides a speedy resolution of conflicts thus, “shortening the waiting time.” “We don’t have to wait for two years; instead, it could take at least three to four months for an award to be made. An investor is assured that there is a quick, impartial, and transparent way that an issue will be resolved during the arbitration process,” Shalbeck told Gulf Times.He also said the new law makes an arbitrator accountable for errors committed during the process.“It is also the first time that in a text of law they are talking about the responsibility of the arbitrators from a professional point of view – how an arbitrator is trying to work transparently, impartiality, and independently, and if he commits any ‘unprofessional errors’, he can be brought before justice and the party concerned can ask for compensation for the error committed,” he said.Other “improvements” under the new law, according to Shalbeck, include an “action of nullity in 30 days’, which means that the parties involved will know if the award will be enforced or not, and that QICCA will appoint an arbitrator if one is not appointed by one of the parties within one month “to ensure that nothing will stop the flow of the arbitration process.”