Beijing Arbitration Commission

    On October 29, 2013, a delegation of the Legal Affairs Committee of European Parliament, under the leadership of Vice-Chairman Mr. Baldassarre visited the Beijing Arbitration Commission (BAC). They were warmly welcomed by the Deputy Director of the BAC Wang Hongsong and Deputy Secretary-General Chen Fuyong.

Visit of the Legal Affairs Committee of European Parliament at the Beijing Arbitration Commission	Vice-Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee of European Parliament Mr. Baldassarre

    First, all the delegates watched a video on the history and development of the BAC. Mr. Baldassarre was deeply impressed by the vitality and rapid development of the BAC. Having listened to the latest achievements of BAC as introduced by Deputy Secretary-General Chen Fuyong, in particular with the fact that GAR 2013 Regional Arbitration Guidelines listed the BAC as the main concern and that the BAC had successfully held “Summit Forum on Chinese Commercial Dispute Settlement” in London with the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Mr. Baldassarre even had more faith on the prospects of the BAC.

    After Mr. Baldassarre gave the speech, the members of the delegation had actively raised their concerned issues involving all aspects of arbitration, such as the intellectual property cases accepted by the BAC, reasons for clients to choose the BAC as the dispute resolution institution, construction and management of the BAC arbitrator team, applicable law in international commercial arbitration cases and relationship between the arbitration commission and the government etc. The Deputy Director Wang Hongsong carefully answered all the questions one by one. While discussing the intellectual property right cases accepted by the BAC, Ms. Wang Hongsong presented to the delegation about the BAC’s rapid development in this filed with data and figures. As to the arbitrator selection, Ms. Wang Hongsong said that the arbitrators selected by the BAC not only comply with general requirements set for arbitrators, but also are leaders in their fields. As for arbitrator team management, many delegates inquired about measures taken against arbitrators who have accepted bribery. Ms. Wang Hongsong believed that more important than a legal remedy was to preclude the possibility of arbitrators soliciting or taking bribery. The BAC had taken a series of measures to avoid such cases. The participants agreed with Ms. Wang Hongsong. Some representatives were surprised to find out that some of the excellent legal experts in their countries are also the arbitrators of BAC. And at the end of the discussion Mr. Baldassarre said that if there were any commercial disputes to be solved in China, the BAC will be his first choice.

The delegates are asking questions	Conference site

    Visiting the BAC was the one of the important parts of the Legal Affairs Committee of European Parliament’s three days visit to China. As a domestically leading arbitration commission with increasingly international impact, this visit is not only important for improving the EU to understand the commercial arbitration in China, but also profits the BAC with professional guidance provided by the Legal Affairs Committee on how to under some the frontier issues in international arbitration, which helps the BAC to lay a good foundation in solving international commercial disputes in the future.