News and Overviews

The Japan Commercial Arbitration Association (JCAA) was founded in 1950 and represents itself as the only permanent arbitration institute in Japan to date.

Statistics

Despite being set up a quite significant time ago the overall number of arbitrations which have been administered by the Association since then cannot be said as considerable given especially the like statistics of other well-known arbitration centres of the Asian Region, such as Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre or Singapore International Arbitration Centre. Some scholars maintain that this can be explained by the absence of a strong arbitration culture in Japan. They argue that two Japanese parties signing a contract often do not see the likelihood of a dispute; in the event that a dispute arises, Japanese parties see no need to go outside of the efficient and cost-effective court system (Mark Goodrich. Japanese arbitration - much work done; much still to do. JCAA Newsletter, 27/2012).

However a steady increasing trend in a caseload of JCCA is evident (the following data have been taken from the mentioned article by Mark Goodrich):

Year	International Arbitration	Domestic Arbitration
2006	11	0
2007	12	3
2008	12	0
2009	17	1
2010	21	6

Год

Year	The nationality of the law firms represented parties
2006	Japan: 14, US: 4, Korea: 1
2007	Japan: 19, US: 3, UK: 2, China: 1
2008	Japan: 17, US: 5, Taiwan: 1
2009	Japan: 22, US: 3, France: 2, UK: 1, China : 1, Korea: 1
2010	Japan: 38, US: 6, France: 1, UK: 1, Singapore: 1, Mongolia : 1

Arbitration Rules

The Association has adopted Commercial Arbitration Rules, Arbitration Fee Regulations, Regulations for Arbitrator’s Remuneration and Administrative and Procedural Rules for Arbitration under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules.

Art. 41 of the Rules is noteworthy for its non-traditional solution to the situation where parties have not agreed on the law applicable to the dispute. Under Art. 41(2) in this case the arbitral tribunal shall apply the law of the country or state to which the dispute in the arbitral proceedings is most closely connected. This approach does not seem to be a conventional one since the Rules of most arbitration centres entitle the arbitral tribunal in such a case to either apply the rules of law which it determines to be appropriate (e.g., Art. 21 of the ICC Arbitration and ADR Rules, art. 22.3 of the LCIA Arbitration rules), or conflict-of-law rules which the tribunal deems appropriate (e.g., Art. 26(1) of the ICAC Rules; the latter approach being more conservative though).

Another interesting feature may be found in art. 3, 4 of the Regulations for Arbitrator’s Remuneration (Regulations), which provide some interesting, rules for the usage of hourly rates by arbitrators.

Thus, only one-half of the travelling time the arbitrator spends for arbitral proceedings shall be added to the Arbitration Hours except for the time spent for preparation for arbitral proceedings.

Taking into consideration their experience as arbitrators, the complexity of the case and related matters, the Association will determine an hourly rate within the range of ¥30,000 to ¥80,000 for each arbitrator; provided that the hourly rate for the third arbitrator shall not be lower than these for the other arbitrators.

When the arbitration hours exceed sixty (60) hours, the hourly rate shall be reduced by ten (10)% for every fifty (50) hours in excess of the initial sixty (60) hours; provided that the reduction shall not exceed fifty (50)% of the original hourly rate and provided further that the hourly rate for the time spent for the entrusted work by the arbitrator entrusted to do such work as set forth in Article 3, Paragraph 4 shall be equal to that arbitrator’s original Hourly Rate.

Lex arbitri

The Association’s website contains Japan Arbitration law. Apart from this, Special Measures Law concerning the Handling of Legal Business by Foreign Lawyer is also available there.

06.02.2013

Specialists of Genuine Arbitration Service, Ltd. represent clients’ interests in arbitration administered by the Association and will be happy to provide you with any possible assistance in arbitral proceedings governed by the arbitration rules of the Association.