Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Citizens of the Slovak Republic, mainly its business subjects, have long been feeling an absence of legal enforcement, inadequate length and delays in legal proceedings.

The stated problems are often attributed to a high challengability of matters at Slovak General Courts, a lack of court funding and equipment, corruption and rigidity of legislation regulating court proceedings. It will take rather a long time to solve and eliminate these drawbacks of the Slovak judicial system, while the competent bodies such as the National Council of the Slovak Republic, the Ministry of Justice of the SR, the Supreme Court of the SR and professional associations of judges cannot be expected to eliminate or reduce these drawbacks in a short time.

However, business and business environment in the Slovak Republic is a part of the global market economy and the speed and reliability of solutions and decisions are the basis of success in the market.

It is obvious that when doing business there are disputes and discrepancies between partners - their solution in Slovakia is very costly and requires a long-year waiting for a result which, in spite of being a success as a court case, does not guarantee a proper settling of a claim or other proper settling of a legal title of a party successful in the cause. The possibility to enforce (satisfy) your right, or to settle a contested cause with your business partner or a client in a short time period, on a professional level and without unnecessarily high costs is an important and necessary part of business-making, competitiveness and legal certainty of business subjects.

The mentioned facts and problems were and are present also in a lot of OECD countries and have lead to the development of an alternative settlement of disputes. The alternative settlement of disputes mainly consists in the possibility to settle disputes in arbitral procedures or by means of mediation. Advantages of such dispute settlement have gained on importance and have resulted in adopting a Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law in 1985. Since 1985 more than 40 countries such as Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Scotland, Hungary, Singapore or Russia have adopted new laws on arbitral procedures based and inspired by the mentioned Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration.

By approving the Act No. 244/2002 Coll. on Arbitration (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act on Arbitration’) in 2002, Slovakia also became one of the countries which introduced an alternative way of dispute settling – alternative to proceedings held at state courts. However, settling disputes in an alternative way has a long tradition and has been historically rooted in the central European territory. Arbitrators or arbitral tribunals used to settle disputes as early as in the Middle Ages, in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as well as in the successive states after its break-down. The first-republic Czechoslovak Republic even signed an enactment of the International Commercial Arbitration in 1923. In countries with Anglo-Saxon law as well as in continental-Europe countries, arbitration or the economic arbitration is a dominant way of settling commercial disputes. The parties to the proceedings do not bring their commercial disputes to state courts for settling for the above-stated reasons.

It is necessary for business subjects in Slovakia to adopt a similar system of dispute settlement. The time has shown that the state justice system or the system of settling commercial disputes does not help well-working contractual business relationships to be established, it even deforms them by making decisions full of contradictions, protecting debtors and prolonging the length of proceedings. The Act on Arbitration shall be considered as a part of exercising legal guarantees stipulated in the Article 46 of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic as the right to judicial and other legal protection and in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Article 6 as the right to a fair and adequate public hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal. The Act on Arbitration enables natural persons and corporate entities to agree on settling their civil and commercial disputes before an appointed arbiter or arbiters of a Permanent Court of Arbitration with advantages described in other parts of our web page.

The aim to give people a chance to settle their disputes in arbitration before sound lawyers and professionals has lead to establishing the company of ROZHODCOVSKÁ, ARBITRÁŽNA A MEDIAČNÁ, a.s., Corporate IN: 35 862 882, registered in the Company Register District Court of Bratislava I., Sec.: Sa, Insert No. 3157/B (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Company’) which, in view of its purpose, established a PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION established with the ROZHODCOVSKÁ, ARBITRÁŽNA A MEDIAČNÁ, a.s. The aim of establishing the PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION is to give people a chance to settle their civil and commercial disputes in a flexible, objective, quick and confidential way mainly in an arbitral procedure. All action which the PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION has performed until now has confirmed the advantages of settling disputes in arbitral procedures. Law-suits presented at the court of arbitration for settling have always been resolved within 2 months and no arbitral judgment has been challenged at the state court – this shows a high professional level of arbiters’ decisions and their strict following of the legal regulations of the Slovak Republic. Using an arbitration clause in contracts is becoming more and more common also in Slovakia and business subjects as well as natural persons are adopting this modern solution together with a guarantee represented by arbitration, as against the long-term legal insecurity. Indisputable, modern and quick settlement of disputes in proceedings held at the PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION guarantees a success of your business activities and it will bring the necessary legal certainty to your company.