Australian Capital Territory Numbered Acts

COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION ACT 2017 (NO. 7 OF 2017) - NOTES

Dictionary

(see s 1E)

Note 1     The Legislation Act

contains definitions and other provisions relevant to this Act.

Note 2     For example, the Legislation Act

, dict, pt 1, defines the following terms:

              •     exercise

              •     function

              •     oath

              •     person

              •     Supreme Court

              •     the Territory.

Note 3     The Model Law does not include definitions of the following terms:

              •     arbitration agreement

              •     confidential information

              •     disclose

              •     domestic commercial arbitration

              •     exercise

              •     function

              •     interim measure

              •     Model Law

              •     party

              •     the court.

"arbitral tribunal" means a sole arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators.

"arbitration" means any domestic commercial arbitration whether or not administered by a permanent arbitral institution.

"arbitration agreement"—see section 7 (1).

"confidential information", in relation to arbitral proceedings, means information that relates to the arbitral proceedings or to an award made in those proceedings and includes the following:

        (a)     the statement of claim, statement of defence and all other pleadings, submissions, statements or other information supplied to the arbitral tribunal by a party;

        (b)     any information supplied by a party to another party in compliance with a direction of the arbitral tribunal;

        (c)     any evidence (whether documentary or otherwise) supplied to the arbitral tribunal;

        (d)     any notes made by the arbitral tribunal of oral evidence or submissions given before the arbitral tribunal;

        (e)     any transcript of oral evidence or submissions given before the arbitral tribunal;

        (f)     any rulings of the arbitral tribunal;

        (g)     any award of the arbitral tribunal.

"disclose", in relation to confidential information, includes publishing or communicating or otherwise supplying the confidential information.

"domestic", in relation to an arbitration—see section 1 (3).

"interim measure"—see section 17.

"Model Law" means the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (as adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on 21 June 1985, and as amended by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on 7 July 2006).

"party" means a party to an arbitration agreement and includes—

        (a)     any person claiming through or under a party to the arbitration agreement; and

        (b)     in any case where an arbitration does not involve all of the parties to the arbitration agreement, those parties to the arbitration agreement who are parties to the arbitration.

"the court" means, subject to section 6 (2), the Supreme Court.

    Notified under the Legislation Act

on 4 April 2017.

3     Republications of amended laws

    For the latest republication of amended laws, see www.legislation.act.gov.au

.

I certify that the above is a true copy of the Commercial Arbitration Bill 2017, which originated in the Legislative Assembly as the Commercial Arbitration Bill 2016 and was passed by the Assembly on 21 March 2017.

Clerk of the Legislative Assembly

© Australian Capital Territory 2017

Australian Capital Territory

Part 1.1Anglican Church of Australia Constitution Act 196161

Part 1.2Evidence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 199162

Part 1.3Health Act 199362

Part 1.4Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission Act 199763

Part 1.5Road Transport (General) Act 199964

Part 1.6Road Transport (General) Regulation 200064

Part 1.7Road Transport (Third-Party Insurance) Act 200864

Part 1.8Utilities Act 200066

Part 1.9Workers Compensation Act 195166

Part 1.10Workers Compensation Regulation 200266

Australian Capital Territory

Commercial Arbitration Act 2017

A2017-7

An Act for the conduct of commercial arbitration, and for other purposes

Note Sections of this Act that contain a reference to the ‘Model Law' beneath the heading are substantially the same as the provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (as adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on 21 June 1985 with amendments as adopted by that Commission in 2006) so as to be as uniform as possible with the UNCITRAL Model Law.

Some changes have been made to those provisions of the Act based on the UNCITRAL Model Law to amend or supplement the provisions in their application to domestic arbitrations in the ACT or to accommodate modern drafting styles and conventions (for example, provisions drafted in gender neutral terms and archaisms are replaced with modern alternatives).

Notes draw attention to substantive changes.

The original numbering of the ‘articles' of the UNCITRAL Model Law has been retained but converted to references to ‘sections', and articles containing more than 1 have been re-formatted into subsections.

There are a number of additional provisions to those based on the UNCITRAL Model Law.

The Model Law contains provisions that are not needed in this Act—the article number and heading to the article appearing in the Model Law are included in this Act despite the omission of the body of the section.