An Act relating to the conduct of commercial arbitrations; to repeal the Commercial Arbitration Act 1984; and for other purposes.
Sections of this Act that contain a reference to the “Model Law” in 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 New South Wales or to accommodate modern drafting styles and conventions (for example, provisions are 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 one sentence have been re-formatted into subsections. There are a number of additional provisions to those based on the UNCITRAL Model Law.
This Act is the Commercial Arbitration Act 2010.
This Act commences on a day or days to be appointed by proclamation.
The paramount object of this Act is to facilitate the fair and final resolution of commercial disputes by impartial arbitral tribunals without unnecessary delay or expense.
This Act aims to achieve its paramount object by:
(a) enabling parties to agree about how their commercial disputes are to be resolved (subject to subsection (3) and such safeguards as are necessary in the public interest), and
(b) providing arbitration procedures that enable commercial disputes to be resolved in a cost effective manner, informally and quickly.
This Act must be interpreted, and the functions of an arbitral tribunal must be exercised, so that (as far as practicable) the paramount object of this Act is achieved.
Subsection (3) does not affect the application of section 33 of the Interpretation Act 1987 for the purposes of interpreting this Act.
This Act applies to domestic commercial arbitrations.
The International Arbitration Act 1974 of the Commonwealth covers international commercial arbitrations and the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards.
The provisions of this Act, except sections 8, 9, 17H, 17I, 17J, 35 and 36, apply only if the place of arbitration is in New South Wales.
An arbitration is
(a) the parties to an arbitration agreement have, at the time of the conclusion of that agreement, their places of business in Australia, and
(b) the parties have (whether in the arbitration agreement or in any other document in writing) agreed that any dispute that has arisen or may arise between them…