1. What is the current legal landscape for International Arbitration in your jurisdiction?

Romania has a stable legal framework for international arbitration and pro-arbitration case law. It is party to the main international arbitration treaties, including the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York, 10 June 1958), the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration (Geneva, 21 April 1961), and the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (Washington, 18 March 1965).

Arbitration is traditionally popular in the infrastructure and construction sectors in Romania, one of the reasons being that the early infrastructure projects financed through EU’s pre-accession instruments were based on the FIDIC Conditions of Contract with the default ICC arbitration clause, which were later transposed into Romanian regulations in 2008. Since 2018, the Romanian model public procurement contract for infrastructure projects provides for arbitration under the purview of the home-based Court of International Commercial Arbitration attached to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CCIR). Against this background, the wider construction industry is very familiar with arbitration in Romania.

Arbitration is likewise widely used in the energy sector, where a significant number of privatisation and post-privatisation disputes have been resolved by arbitration over the years. It is further fast gaining momentum among companies conducting business in the next-generation industries, such as renewable energy, tech and IT&C, as they increasingly turn to arbitration instead of state courts, mainly due to the availability of confidential proceedings and perceived efficiency and flexibility of the process.

Within and outside these industries, unpredictable timeframes in court litigation due to courts’ overload, tensions surrounding Romania’s judiciary system in the recent years, and repeated suspensions of the judicial activity, led businesses to take a closer look at the advantages of arbitration, especially in sectors where potential disputes are time sensitive.

Among arbitral institutions, the most frequently used are the home-based CCIR, the International Court of Arbitration attached to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Vienna International Arbitral Centre (VIAC), and occasionally the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA). The Stockholm-based arbitral institution (SCC) likewise manifests growing interest in Romania.

Romania is one of the fastest growing international arbitration jurisdictions in the CEE region. According to statistics, Romanian parties at ICC were the fifth most common from Central and Southeastern Europe in 2024. At VIAC, Romania was second after Austria based on the origin of the parties in 2023, and third based on the nationality of the arbitrators in 2023 and 2024.

2. What three essential pieces of advice would you give to clients involved in International Arbitration matters?

Pay close attention to your arbitration agreement. When concluding contracts with arbitration clauses, keep them simple by relying as much as possible on model arbitration clauses provided in the agreed arbitration rules. Over-elaborated arbitration clauses often turn out to be a bad idea to the point of making the arbitration clause unenforceable due to conflicting or ambiguous language, impractical requirements or incompatibility with the applicable arbitration rules or procedural law. Those preparing to refer a dispute to arbitration should, first of all, carefully assess the arbitration agreement and its potential gaps or inconsistencies that could call into question the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal. By addressing such issues early, the pre-arbitral and procedural strategy can be customised taking into account the vulnerabilities of the arbitration agreement. If handled superficially, jurisdictional issues can be a time-consuming and expensive part of the arbitration.

Start early. International arbitration can often proceed faster than court litigation. It is also often more adversarial and less inquisitorial than domestic litigation in civil law jurisdictions (including Romania), relying on party initiative and presentation of evidence by the parties more than it is the case in court proceedings. Parties should start preparing their case, gathering their evidence, and selecting experts early, before the commencement of arbitration. They should then actively participate at the beginning of the arbitration, when the arbitrators are appointed and the procedural rules and timeline of the arbitration are being discussed and decided.

Think ahead about enforcement. Parties should think ahead about how an arbitral award would be enforced when they draft the arbitration clause, prepare for commencing arbitration proceedings, as well as throughout the arbitration process.

3. What are the greatest threats and opportunities in International Arbitration law in the next 12 months?

In the commercial arbitration space, the opportunities laying ahead in the foreseeable future include multiple possibilities to expand the use of arbitration as a predictable and efficient process for resolving disputes in the evolving renewable energy, tech and IT&C markets. The increased interest and diverse offering of the local and international arbitral institutions in Romania is a sign that there is a lot of potential for arbitration in commercial disputes in this jurisdiction.

There are currently no major setbacks or threats to international arbitration proceedings in Romania. Of the relatively recent developments, one to note is a binding interpretation ruling of Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice published in 2024, which imposed stricter rules on local arbitral institutions. The decision was prompted by conflicting case law in the context of an increasing number of newly established non-governmental organisations of public interest (NGOs) functioning as small arbitral institutions in Romania. In essence, the High Court held that NGOs may administer institutional arbitration in Romania only if authorised by law to do so. Following this ruling, certain concerns were voiced by arbitration lawyers in relation to the scope of the ruling and to whether it would affect the public perception of arbitration in Romania and the enforcement of arbitration agreements.

However, the ruling in question has not and should not been perceived as a threat to arbitration, but rather as an effort to protect the users’ trust in institutional arbitration organised by domestic bodies in Romania. It is also worth noting that the ruling came in the context of legitimacy concerns over arbitration proceedings organised in questionable conditions by certain NGOs.

In any event, the ruling did not deal with the activity of international or foreign arbitral institutions, and certainly does not apply to established institutions, such as ICC, VIAC, SCC, which are popular choices among Romanian arbitration users. In fact, in the reasoning of the decision, recalling Romania’s long tradition of institutional arbitration, the High Court noted that Romania accepted the jurisdiction of international arbitration courts in commercial matters by ratifying in 1963 the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration of 21 April 1961. This part of the High Court’s reasoning is in and of itself indicative of the judiciary’s high regard of international arbitration in Romania.

The decision also did not affect the activity of the Court of International Commercial Arbitration attached to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania and that of the local arbitral institutions attached to the county chambers of commerce across Romania.

One year after the publication of the said decision, there have been no major negative judgments following on from the High Court’s interpretation, such that could either affect the enforcement of arbitration agreements or show a change in the local courts’ arbitration-friendly attitude.

On the investment arbitration side, as an EU member state, Romania continues facing uncertainty over the future of intra-EU investor-state arbitration. The controversies surrounding the alleged conflict with EU law in the aftermath of the decisions rendered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the Achmea, Komstroy and PL Holdings cases raise questions related to the legitimacy of intra-EU arbitration between foreign investors and their host states.

In parallel with observing the increased focus on the potential of contract-based investor-state arbitration, there is considerable attention to the developments in the existing intra-EU investment arbitration and post-arbitration cases involving Romania.

Romania is home to the Micula saga, in which investors are still seeking to enforce an intra-EU BIT award considered to be in conflict with EU law. After partial satisfaction of the award, Romania is currently taking steps to recover the amounts paid, with interest, attempting to comply with a CJEU ruling rendered in 2022, while the investors are looking to continue the enforcement of the award outside the EU.

Romania is also facing one of the first known investor claims after the agreement entered at EU level to terminate the intra-EU BITS. An ICSID arbitral tribunal has recently denied a summary dismissal of this intra-EU BIT claim of the insurance group Eurohold on ground of the agreement to terminate the intra-EU BITS. The arbitral tribunal has reserved the decision related to the effects of this agreement for a separate preliminary phase of the proceedings. Therefore, an upcoming decision on this issue can shed further light on the prospects of intra-EU investor-state arbitration.

These controversies in the field of investment arbitration do not threaten international arbitration in a wider context in Romania. However, there is a sense of expectation as to whether and how international arbitration can reaffirm its status as a reliable method of resolving investor-state disputes in the EU, Romania included.

4. How do you ensure high client satisfaction levels are maintained by your practice?

Our arbitration practice consists of several arbitration teams committed to handling the cases in a responsive and proactive manner, making sure that our clients have at all times a full picture of the short- and long-term legal strategy and contingencies. Beyond being disputes’ lawyers, our aim is to be strategic partners to our clients, and we act bearing in mind that our clients have a business to run while the dispute is ongoing.

As a firm with strong international experience at team and individual level, we are a “one-stop shop” for our clients’ international arbitration cases. We assist from the early stages of their disputes, often even before the dispute arises, until the final arbitral award, and beyond, during the enforcement process. This continuity of service ensures consistency and predictability throughout the process in terms of legal strategy, organisational effort and budgeting on the part of our clients’ inhouse teams.

5. What technological advancements are reshaping International Arbitration law and how can clients benefit from them?

As a more user-friendly and flexible dispute resolution alternative to court litigation, arbitration is generally receptive to technological advancements.

Remote and hybrid hearings are one area in which arbitration has lately gained significant practical advantage over state court litigation in Romania. During the Covid-19 pandemic, as a consequence of travel bans and distancing rules, many arbitration hearings migrated relatively swiftly to videoconferencing platforms, ensuring the continuity of the proceedings, whereas state courts were rather reluctant to adopt remote hearings. Although in-person arbitration hearings have regained ground in the recent years, videoconferencing is still widely used for smaller and less fact-intensive hearings and for case management conferences. Certainly, videoconferencing is used far more often in arbitration proceedings than before the pandemic, and this has contributed to the increased efficiency of the arbitration process. In contrast, Romanian courts have largely given up the idea of remote hearings, not least due a perceived lack of adequate procedural rules. Less constrained by formalities than courts, many arbitral institutions have adopted special protocols for using remote means of communication in remote and hybrid hearings. Furthermore, technical providers have adapted their offering to complement the increasing demand for more or less sophisticated solutions for remote hearings. Capitalizing on this evolving trend, the main home-based arbitral institution CCIR has recently made an even bolder move in this direction in the 2025 revision of the arbitration rules by making remote hearings the norm in arbitration proceedings conducted under its purview. Clients benefit from the wider adoption of remote hearings in arbitration with more predictable timeframes, and cost savings.

A less spectacular, but not less significant technology-related practice that makes arbitration particularly suitable for complex and fact-intensive disputes is the use of electronic files and file-sharing solutions and platforms. Such documents and tools are widely used in arbitration, increasing the time- and cost-efficiency of the proceedings, whereas court litigation is subject to more formal requirements in Romania.

Even the wide reliance on direct e-mail communication between arbitral tribunals and parties in arbitration proceedings can be seen as a major technology-related efficiency gain in arbitration proceedings in contrast to litigation in Romanian courts. The prospect of an immediate reaction of the arbitral tribunal on an urgent procedural request, by way of a simple e-mail exchange, is currently almost inconceivable in court litigation.

On a different note, the increased use of data analytics platforms and the advancement of artificial intelligence in the field of international arbitration are gradually reshaping the way legal teams, arbitrators and experts are carrying out substantive work in international arbitration cases. Technology-backed solutions can provide assistance in virtually all aspects of the legal work, from selecting arbitrators and running conflict checks to boosting the efficiency of the legal research and streamlining other operative tasks. While these solutions are becoming increasingly popular in the international arbitration space, there is ongoing discussion around using them ethically and with due regard to the principles of fairness and equal treatment. Romania is still an emerging market for this type of technology-backed solutions. Currently, there is more awareness of the benefits and risks related to the use of AI-powered tools in the arbitration space than in litigation proceedings before Romanian courts. Therefore, arbitration proceedings are better equipped for the responsible use of such tools.