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News and Topics
Summary of Amendments
 The JCAA's Commercial Arbitration Rules and the Arbitration Fee Regulations were amended by its Board of Directors on May 28, 1997. The main purpose of this amendment is to prepare the rules to enable disputes of relatively small amounts to be settled efficiently and speedily by the amendment of the present Commercial Arbitration Rules in order to promote the use of arbitration as the method to the settlement of commercial disputes by facilitating more expedition of arbitral proceedings. For this amendment work, the JCAA established in 1996 a working party on preparation for the Expedited Arbitration Rules, which consists six experts, namely, Prof. Yasuhei Taniguchi of Kyoto University as chairman, Prof. Yoshimitsu Aoyama of Tokyo University, Mr. Kazuo Ihara, attorney at law, Prof. Akira Takakuwa of Kyoto University and Prof. Masato Dogauchi of Tokyo University each as a member and Prof. Toshio Sawada of Sophia University as adviser, and the working party met in four meetings and deliberated about this issue based upon the draft rules prepared by the JCAA secretariat as a basis for its discussion. In preparing the draft rules, studied were such rules as the Expedited Procedures both in the Commercial Arbitration Rules of American Arbitration Association and in the Arbitration Rules of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Geneva, the Rules for Expedited Arbitrations of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and the WIPO Expedited Arbitration Rules. Taking into account the results of the working party's deliberation, the JCAA amended the Rules and Regulations. Their principal points of the amendment which were in effect as of October 1, 1997 are summarized as follows:
1. Amended Points of the Commercial Arbitration Rules
| (1) |
The Expedited Procedures were built as a separate Chapter V in the Commercial Arbitration Rules. |
| (2) |
The Expedited Procedures shall, in principle, apply in any case where the amount and economic value of the claimant's claim are not more than ¥ 20,000,000. In other words, if an aggregate amount of the amount and economic value of the claimant's claim are not more than ¥20,000,000, the Expedited Procedures shall apply. |
| (3) |
Notwithstanding the provisions of Article 10, Paragraph 1, the "Basic Date" as defined in Rule 10, Paragraph 1 shall, under the Expedited Procedures, be the date after the lapse of one (1) week from the date on which the Association sends a notice of acceptance of the request for arbitration. For this shortening, the Association will, in principle, send such notice via private courier service instead of registered airmail. |
| (4) |
Neither the claimant nor the counterclaimant may amend or supplement their claim and counterclaim. |
| (5) |
The arbitral tribunal shall consist of a sole
arbitrator. |
| (6) |
The arbitral tribunal may, in principle, hold a hearing for one (1) day only. |
| (7) |
The arbitral tribunal shall, in principle, make an
arbitral award within three (3) months after its establishment. |
| (8) |
Under the former Rule, Rule 43, Paragraph 1, the clerk in charge prepares a draft of minutes for each hearing and accomplishes the minutes after adjustments of different opinions of the arbitrator(s) and the parties. This adjustment work takes time and is troublesome, and such minutes may seldom be seen in the rules of other arbitral institutions. Because of those reasons and coping with the expected increase of arbitration cases, the preparation of minutes was abolished along with the amendment for the Expedited Procedure and a summary record will be prepared instead just for an internal use. Further, the preparation of minutes for the arbitral proceedings already initiated at the time of the amendment of the Commercial Arbitration Rules was determined to be also simplified due to the above reasons. |
2. Amended Points of the Arbitration Fee Regulations
| (1) |
With introduction of the Expedited Procedures, the administrative fee in case where the amount or economic value is not more than ¥20,000,000 was reduced to lighten the burden of arbitration cost incurred by the parties. |
| (2) |
Article 4 of the Regulations providing the administrative fee in case of withdrawal of the request for arbitration may not apply to the Expedited Procedures, and so, separate provisions were set forth in Article 5.
The effective date of the Regulations is October 1, 1997, the same as that of the amended Commercial Arbitration Rules. |
3. Flowchart of Arbitral Proceedings
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