Arrangement of the Supreme People's Court on Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitration Awards between the Mainland and the Macau Special Administrative Region

Fa Shi [2007] No. 17

December 12, 2007

In accordance with the provisions of Article 93 of the Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and upon negotiations, the Supreme People's Court and the Macau Special Administrative Region reached the Arrangement on Reciprocal Admission and Enforcement of Arbitration Awards between the Mainland and the Macau Special Administrative Region(hereinafter referred to as the Arrangement), which was signed on October 30, 2007. The Arrangement was adopted at the 1437th meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People's Court on September 17, 2007 and is hereby promulgated. Upon the unanimity of both parties, this Arrangement shall come into force as of January 1, 2008.

Appendix: Arrangement of the Supreme People's Court on Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitration Awards between the Mainland and the Macau Special Administrative Region

In accordance with the provisions of Article 93 of the Basic Law of the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and upon negotiations, the Supreme People's Court and the Macau Special Administrative Region reached the following arrangements on reciprocal admission and enforcement of arbitration awards between the mainland and the Macau Special Administrative Region:

Article 1 When the people's courts in the mainland admit and enforce the civil and commercial arbitration awards made by arbitral institutions and arbitrators of the Macau Special Administrative Region in accordance with the arbitration laws and regulations of the Macau Special Administrative Region, and when courts in the Macau Special Administrative Region admit and enforce the civil and commercial arbitration awards made by arbitration institutions in the mainland in accordance with the Arbitration Law of the People's Republic of China, this Arrangement shall apply.
For issues not provided for in this Arrangement, the procedural laws and rules of the place where the admission and enforcement are to be done shall apply.

Article 2 For an arbitration award made in the mainland or the Macau Special Administrative Region, where one party refuses to comply with it, the other party may apply to the competent court at the place of domicile, the place of residence or the locality of the property of the party against whom the application for admission and enforcement is filed.
In the mainland, the intermediate people's courts have the right to accept applications for admitting and enforcing arbitration awards. Where two or more intermediate people's courts have jurisdiction over an application, the party concerned may choose to file the application with one of them.
In the Macau Special Administrative Region, the intermediate courts have the right to accept applications for admitting arbitration awards, and the lower courts have the right to enforce arbitration awards.

Article 3 Where the place of domicile, the place of residence or the locality of the property of the party against whom an application is filed are at both the mainland and the Macau Special Administrative Region, the applicant may file the application for admission and enforcement with the competent court in one place or the competent courts in both places.
Where the party concerned files application with the competent courts in both places, the two courts shall make examinations in accordance with law. In the case of approval, the courts shall take such means of execution as sealing up, detaining or freezing the property of the party against whom the order is to be executed. The court at the place of arbitration shall firstly enforce the payment of the debts; the court at the other place may, after receiving the certificate issued by the court at the place of arbitration proving that the creditor's right is not paid off, enforce the payment to the applicant for the part not paid off. The total amount of the property enforced by both courts may not exceed the amount prescribed in accordance with the awards and the related legal provisions.

Article 4 Where an applicant apply to the competent court for admitting and enforcing an arbitration award, the applicant shall submit the following documents or the notarized duplicates of the following documents:
1. Application form;
2. Identity certificate of the applicant;
3. Arbitration agreement; and
4. Arbitration award or written arbitration meditation.
Where any of the above-mentioned documents is not prepared in Chinese, a translated version in Chinese which has been officially notarized must be submitted by the applicant.

Article 5 The application form shall include the following contents:
1. Where the applicant or the party against whom the application is filed is a natural person, his name and domicile shall be stated; where the applicant or the party against whom the application is filed is a legal person or other organization, its name and domicile as well as the name, post and domicile of its legal representative or main principal shall be stated; where the applicant is a legal person or other organization with foreign nationality, the corresponding notarized and certified materials shall be submitted;
2. The case number or identifying information and effective date of the arbitration award or written arbitral mediation applied for admission and enforcement; and
3. The reasons for the application for admitting and enforcing the arbitration award and the specific requirements, as well as the locality of the property of the party against whom the application is filed, the property status and how and to what extent the arbitration award has been enforced shall also be stated.

Article 6 The time limit for an application to apply to the competent court for admitting and enforcing an arbitration award made in the mainland or the Macau Special Administrative Region shall be determined in accordance with the legal provisions of the place where the award is to be admitted and enforced.

Article 7 As for an arbitration award applied for admission and enforcement, where the party against whom the application is filed has evidence to prove any of the following circumstances, upon check and verification, the court may rule a disapproval of the application:
1. One party concerned to the arbitration agreement was legally incapable when concluding the arbitration agreement in accordance with the applicable law; or, the arbitration agreement is invalid in accordance with the applicable law agreed on by the parties concerned or the laws of the place of arbitration if no applicable law has been agreed on by the parties concerned;
2. The party against whom the application is filed has not received the proper notice of electing arbitrators or proceeding the arbitral procedure, or fails to state his/its opinion for other reasons;
3. The dispute dealt with in the arbitration award is not the dispute submitted for arbitration or is not within the scope of the arbitration agreement; or the arbitration award contains decisions on issues beyond the scope of arbitration submitted by the parties concerned, but such decisions are separable from the decisions on the issues submitted for arbitration, the decisions made in the award on the issues submitted for arbitration can be admitted;
4. The formation of the arbitral tribunal or the arbitral procedure is against the stipulations between the parties concerned, or is against the law of the place of arbitration in the case of the absence of such stipulations between the parties concerned;
5. The arbitration award has not become binding to the parties concerned yet, has been revoked or refused to enforce by the court at the place of arbitration.
Where a competent court has verified that the disputable issue can not be settled by way of arbitration according to the law of the place of enforcement, the arbitration award shall not be admitted or enforced.
Where a competent court in the mainland verifies that admitting and enforcing the arbitration award in the mainland is against the basic principles of law or the social public interests of the mainland, or a competent court in the Macau Special Administrative Region verifies that admitting and enforcing the arbitration award in the Macau Special Administrative Region is against the basic principles of law or the public order of the Macau Special Administrative Region, the arbitration award shall not be admitted or enforced.

Article 8 Where an applicant applies for admitting and enforcing an arbitration award in accordance with the provisions of this Arrangement, he shall pay court costs in accordance with the legal provisions of the place of enforcement.

Article 9 Where one party concerned applies to a competent court for enforcing an arbitration award and the other party applies to a competent court at the other place for revoking the arbitration award, and the party against whom the application is filed applies for suspending enforcement and provides sufficient guarantee, the court of enforcement shall suspend the enforcement.
The court of enforcement shall terminate the enforcement procedure in accordance with the admitted verdict or ruling on revoking the arbitration award; where the application for revoking the arbitration award is rejected, the court of enforcement shall resume the enforcement.
Where one party concerned applies for suspending enforcement, he shall submit to the court of enforcement the legal instrument proving that other court has accepted the application to set aside the award.

Article 10 The court accepting the application for admitting and enforcing an arbitration award shall examine the admission and enforcement requirements and render a verdict as soon as possible.

Article 11 A court can, before or after accepting an application for admitting and enforcing an arbitration award, take preservatory measures for the property of the party against whom the application is filed in accordance with the legal provisions of the locality of the court if the party concerned requires to do so.

Article 12 When this Arrangement applies, an original document prepared by an authorized public institution (including notary) of one party or its notarized duplicate or translated version may be used by the other party without handling the authentication formalities.

Article 13 This Arrangement does not apply to claims for admitting and enforcing arbitration awards made by parties concerned before this Arrangement comes into force.
From December 20, 1999 to the date when this Arrangement comes into force, the time limit for a party concerned to apply to the mainland for admitting and enforcing an arbitration award made by an arbitration institution or arbitrator in the Macau Special Administrative Region shall calculated since the date when this Arrangement comes into force.

Article 14 In order to put this Arrangement into practice, the Supreme People's Court and the court of last instance of the Macau Special Administrative Region shall provide the related legal documents to each other.
The Supreme People's Court and the court of last instance of the Macau Special Administrative Region shall inform each other the implementation situation of this Arrangement on an annual basis.

Article 15 Where there are any problems or any amendment required to be made in implementing this Arrangement, the Supreme People's Court and the Macau Special Administrative Region shall settle them through negotiations.

Article 16 This Arrangement shall come into force as of January 1, 2008.