International Arbitration Update No. 10: Landmark Recognition and Enforcement of a Foreign Arbitral Award in Myanmar
When investing in developing countries, many foreign investors have concerns as to their remedies in the event of a dispute that is to be tried in the local courts. Whilst investment in Myanmar has increased profoundly in recent years, parties are still unfamiliar with the approach of the courts in Myanmar to commercial disputes. As such, parties regularly opt to use arbitration as their dispute resolution mechanism.
Even where parties do negotiate to utilise arbitration in the event of a dispute, however, foreign investors may still retain a level of doubt as to the eventual ability to have an arbitral award recognised and enforced in Myanmar. This doubt may well be fueled, in part, by Myanmar only having recently become a Contracting State to the New York Arbitration Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards 1958 (“New York Convention”) in April 2013, which was only then adopted into the Myanmar Arbitration Law (Union Law No. 5/2016) (“Myanmar Arbitration Law”) in 2016.
In this client alert, we recount our recent experience with a successful application for recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award in Myanmar – the first reported successful application of its kind.
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