Arbitration

Background:   The Thailand legal regime allows for both court supervised arbitration and out-of-court arbitration. Court supervised arbitration is governed by the Civil Procedure Code. Out of Court arbitration rules may be established privately between the parties and the process is governed by the Arbitration Act of 1987.

Types of Arbitration: For court supervised arbitration there must be an existing complaint pending in the Thailand by this method of resolving disputes is infrequently used. Court system and the parties must have decided the issues to be decided by the arbitrators. This is normally accomplished by the parties submitting a joint request for the court to appoint arbitrators on the issues to be decided for a settlement of the dispute. If the agreement between the parties and joint application does not appear to violate the law, then the court appointed arbitrators may proceed.

Out of court arbitration is governed by the Arbitration Act. The arbitration act will apply if the parties have agreed to submit the dispute to be decided by arbitrators. If an arbitration agreement exists a concerned party may apply to the court to have an existing complaint e removed from the docket and be decided by arbitration.

Enforcement: The Arbitration Act provides for enforcement of relevant foreign arbitral awards which result from arbitration hearings having occurred outside of Thailand and at least one party is not of Thai nationality. Foreign arbitral awards may be enforced only if they are governed by a treaty, convention, or international agreement that Thailand is a party to, and provided that the award or process does not violate other provisions of Thai law.

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