Ukraine has a dual regime: international commercial arbitration and domestic arbitration are governed by separate statutes. International commercial arbitration is governed by the Law of Ukraine “On International Commercial Arbitration” No. 4002-XII of 24 February 1994 (ICA Law), whose Annexes 1 and 2 contain the Statutes of the International Commercial Arbitration Court (ICAC) and the Maritime Arbitration Commission (MAC) at the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI). It applies where the seat is in Ukraine, except that its provisions on referral, court interim measures and recognition (Articles 8, 9, 35 and 36) apply whatever the seat (Article 1(1)), and it was last amended by Law No. 4856-IX of 28 April 2026, in force since 21 May 2026 (see Question 4). Domestic “arbitration courts” (treteiski sudy) are governed by a separate Law No. 1701-IV of 11 May 2004, which does not apply to international arbitration (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 24 July 2018 in case No. 973/34/18).

The Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine 2004, as amended in 2017 (CPC), regulates setting aside (Articles 454–461), recognition and enforcement (Articles 474–482) and court interim measures (Article 149(3)); Article 22 of the Commercial Procedure Code (CommPC) lists non-arbitrable disputes; and the Law “On Private International Law” No. 2709-IV of 23 June 2005 (PIL Law) supplies the public policy clause (Article 12), overriding mandatory rules (Article 14) and exclusive jurisdiction (Article 77).

The mandatory core is limited to the arbitrability limits, the written form of the arbitration agreement (Article 7 ICA Law), equal treatment and a full opportunity to present one’s case (Article 18), and the exhaustive grounds for setting aside and refusal of enforcement, including public policy (Articles 34 and 36 ICA Law; Articles 459 and 478 CPC). Currency control and sanctions legislation, notably the Law “On Sanctions” No. 1644-VII of 14 August 2014, operate as overriding rules (Article 81(2) PIL Law, for instance, bars recognition of foreign decisions on debts of defence-industry enterprises owed to entities of the aggressor state), and it is through them and public policy, rather than through changes to the arbitration statutes, that the war affects arbitration (see Question 43).

The Ukrainian SSR signed the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of 10 June 1958 (NYC) on 29 December 1958 and ratified it in 1960; it has been in force since 8 January 1961, and Ukraine applies it as successor state. Ukraine maintains only the reciprocity declaration, applying the Convention to awards made in non-contracting States only to the extent that they grant reciprocal treatment, and has not made the commercial reservation. The declaration carries little weight, since Article 35 ICA Law requires recognition irrespective of the country in which the award was made and reciprocity, where relevant, is presumed unless the contrary is proved (Article 474(2) CPC). The authors are not aware of any recent refusal for lack of reciprocity.

Ukraine is a party to the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration of 21 April 1961 (European Convention), ratified in 1963 without declarations, which the courts apply alongside the NYC, notably its Article VI(2) on the law governing the arbitration agreement and its Article IX on annulment at the seat. The ICSID Convention has been in force for Ukraine since 7 July 2000, and Ukraine remains a party to the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and to 65 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) in force, the 1998 BIT with the Russian Federation having been terminated by Law No. 3329-IX of 10 August 2023 with effect from 27 January 2025, although under its Article 14(3) investments made before that date remain protected until 27 January 2035. Ukraine signed the Singapore Convention on Mediation in 2019 but has not ratified it.

Ukraine has withdrawn from the 1992 Kyiv Agreement on the Procedure for Resolving Disputes Related to Economic Activity by Law No. 2855-IX of 12 January 2023, and by Law No. 2783-IX of 1 December 2022 it suspended the 1993 Minsk Convention on Legal Assistance in relations with Russia and Belarus and provided for withdrawal; according to the State Judicial Administration, the Minsk Convention ceased to apply to Ukraine on 29 December 2023.

The ICA Law is a 1994 enactment of the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law. In 2017 Article 7 was aligned with the 2006 approach to written form, so that electronic messages accessible for subsequent reference suffice, but the other 2006 amendments, including Chapter IV A on interim measures, have not been adopted.

The ICA Law differs from the Model Law, or uses the options it leaves open, in five respects. First, Article 1(2) does not define “international” in the abstract but lists the disputes that may be referred to international arbitration (on its 2026 extension, see below). Second, Ukraine has used the option in Article 6 of the Model Law to entrust the appointment, challenge and termination functions (Articles 11, 13 and 14) not to a court but to the President of the UCCI in ad hoc arbitration and, in institutional arbitration, to the body designated in the institution’s rules; their decisions are not subject to appeal (Articles 6(1), 11(5), 13(3) and 14(1)). Third, the Statutes of the ICAC and the MAC are annexed to the Law. Fourth, the court functions under Articles 16(3) and 34(2) lie with the appellate courts at the seat (Article 6(2)). Fifth, Article 31(2) requires every award to state its reasons, without the Model Law’s exceptions for agreed unreasoned awards and awards on agreed terms.

The main recent reform is Law No. 4856-IX of 28 April 2026, in force since 21 May 2026. Until then Article 1(2) required either a party with its place of business abroad or an enterprise with foreign investment, that is, under Article 1 of the Law “On the Regime of Foreign Investment” No. 93/96-ВР of 19 March 1996, an enterprise whose charter capital includes at least 10% foreign investment. The criterion remains relevant in practice: in March 2026 the Commercial Cassation Court relied on it to uphold the referral to SCC arbitration in Stockholm of a dispute between a state-owned Ukrainian airport and a Ukrainian ground-handling company with foreign investment (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 26 March 2026 in case No. 911/2568/25). The reform added criteria taken from Article 1(3)(b) and (c) of the Model Law: a dispute now qualifies where the place of business of at least one party is abroad at the time the arbitration agreement is concluded, where the parties have expressly agreed that the subject matter of the arbitration agreement relates to more than one state, or where the seat, any place where a substantial part of the obligations is to be performed or the place with which the subject matter is most closely connected lies outside the state in which the parties have their places of business. The amended Article 1(2) also covers disputes between an investor and a state, its bodies or an intergovernmental organisation in connection with investment activity in Ukraine or in another state, referred on the basis of a treaty, a Ukrainian law, another regulatory act or an agreement of the parties. Law No. 4856-IX also gave Article 6(1) its present form and amended the Statutes, which now describe the ICAC and the MAC as independent permanent arbitral institutions whose Rules are approved by the UCCI and extend the ICAC’s competence to investment disputes. Under its final provisions, which were contested in Parliament, the extension of Article 1(2) applies also to arbitration agreements concluded before Law No. 4856-IX entered into force, and the Cabinet of Ministers is instructed to provide for the ICAC as an option for investor-State disputes in new or revised investment treaties and free trade agreements, and to encourage state-controlled enterprises and public-private partnership projects to refer to national permanent arbitral institutions.

This retroactivity clause raises questions that Law No. 4856-IX leaves open. Parliament’s Main Legal Department objected that it conflicts with Article 58 of the Constitution, which bars retroactive effect save where a law mitigates or cancels liability, but the clause was retained. Its natural effect is to validate, from 21 May 2026, arbitration agreements covering disputes that previously fell outside Article 1(2), typically between two Ukrainian companies without foreign investment, so that a court seised after that date must refer such a dispute to arbitration under Article 8. The restriction has in any event concerned only arbitration seated in Ukraine: the Grand Chamber has held that the conditions in Article 1 apply only where the seat is in Ukraine, so that a dispute between companies registered in Ukraine arising from private-law relations with a foreign element may be referred to arbitration abroad, subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Ukrainian courts (Supreme Court, Grand Chamber, judgment of 1 November 2023 in case No. 910/3208/22). It is less clear whether the clause reaches court proceedings already pending on that date or awards made earlier; in the authors’ view it should not revive an award already set aside or refused recognition, and an award made before 21 May 2026 should be assessed for arbitrability under the law then in force, although the wording of the clause invites the opposite argument.

No further reform of the arbitration legislation is currently under consideration. The UNCITRAL amendments of 6 July 2026 on electronic awards and communications (Articles 2, 3, 31 and 35, with a consequential change to Article 7, option I, paragraph 4), and the accompanying Recommendation that an award should not be refused recognition under the NYC solely because it is electronic, have not been taken up, and no plan has been announced. The ICAC Rules still provide for signed paper originals of the award, and there is no decision on recognition of a purely electronic award.

The principal institution is the ICAC, which has statutory status under Annex 1 to the ICA Law and handles the great majority of international cases seated in Ukraine; according to its own statistics only a small fraction of its awards are challenged: in 2025, 39 applications to set aside ICAC awards were filed and 11 awards were set aside. Its Rules (ICAC Rules) took effect on 1 January 2018 and have been amended several times since, among other things to introduce arbitration-mediation-arbitration and mediation-arbitration procedures (2022) and to allow a single claim under several contracts, most recently on 18 February 2025. They provide for tribunal-ordered interim measures (Articles 25–29), opt-in expedited proceedings (Article 45) and online or hybrid hearings (Article 43), and the ICAC also administers mediation. The MAC hears maritime disputes under Annex 2 to the ICA Law and its own Rules, also last amended on 18 February 2025.

Law No. 4856-IX will require both sets of rules to be adapted, in particular for investor-State cases, and the ICAC has indicated that a new version is in preparation, but no amendments had been published by October 2026.

There is no specialist arbitration court, but since 2017 arbitration matters have been concentrated in the appellate courts. Applications to set aside an award in an international arbitration seated in Ukraine are heard by the appellate court of general jurisdiction at the seat acting as a court of first instance (Articles 23(2) and 454(4) CPC), and applications for recognition of awards made abroad by the appellate court for the city of Kyiv, the Kyiv Court of Appeal (Articles 23(3)(2) and 475(3)). Awards made in Ukraine are recognised by the appellate court at the seat (Articles 23(3)(1) and 482 CPC), and as the ICAC and the MAC sit in Kyiv, the Kyiv Court of Appeal hears nearly all international arbitration matters (case numbers beginning “824/”). The time limits are three months for setting aside (Article 454(6) CPC), which cannot be restored (Article 454(7)), and three years for recognition (Article 475(3)), which may be restored for good cause (Article 475(4)).

A single appeal lies to the Supreme Court sitting as the appellate instance, where panels of the Civil Cassation Court hear it (Articles 24(2) and 351(2) CPC). Domestic awards are reviewed by the appellate courts under the CPC or the appellate commercial courts under the CommPC.

Under Article 7 ICA Law, the arbitration agreement, whether a clause or a separate agreement, must be in writing, which covers a signed document, an exchange of letters, telecommunications or electronic messages accessible for subsequent use, an unchallenged assertion of the agreement in an exchange of claim and defence, and incorporation by reference. Article 207 of the Civil Code of Ukraine No. 435-IV of 16 January 2003 (Civil Code) treats electronically exchanged documents as written, and no qualified electronic signature is required.

The parties must have capacity at the time of conclusion (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 24 September 2020 in case No. 824/198/19), and the signatory must have authority. The Supreme Court treats the arbitration agreement as, in substance, a procedural contract, even where it is contained in a private-law contract (Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 21 March 2024 in case No. 824/99/22). Its validity is therefore governed by the ICA Law and the applicable treaties rather than by the Civil Code rules on invalid transactions, and it cannot be challenged in a stand-alone claim but only on referral, in setting-aside proceedings or in recognition proceedings (Joint Chamber of the Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 30 August 2024 in case No. 911/1766/22; see Question 19). Ukrainian doctrine likewise denies that the agreement is a civil-law contract but describes it as being of a “mixed” nature.

The dispute must fall within Article 1(2) ICA Law (see Question 4) and be arbitrable. Article 22(1) CommPC excludes from arbitration disputes on the invalidation of acts, on state registration of rights to immovables, intellectual property rights and rights to financial instruments, and disputes arising from public procurement contracts, together with the categories to which Article 22(1)(2) cross-refers in Article 20 CommPC: privatisation disputes (except sales of state stakes in banks), corporate disputes, competition matters, bankruptcy and preventive restructuring cases including property claims against a debtor in bankruptcy, challenges to acts of legal entities and their bodies, derivative claims against officers, and certain intellectual property registration and unfair competition matters. Article 22(2) then reopens part of this ground for international arbitration: contractual corporate disputes may be referred to it on the basis of an arbitration agreement between the company and all its participants, and the civil-law aspects of privatisation, public procurement and certain other excluded disputes may be arbitrated (for public procurement, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 23 February 2023 in case No. 824/32/22). Share transaction disputes are arbitrable (Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 20 August 2025 in case No. 910/10001/24), and the Supreme Court has held that the Bankruptcy Code, which contains no rules on arbitration agreements, does not displace the obligation to refer the parties to arbitration under Article II(3) NYC and Article 8 ICA Law, read with Article 19(2) of the Law “On International Treaties of Ukraine” No. 1906-IV of 29 June 2004, under which a ratified treaty prevails over conflicting legislation. It therefore left without consideration a guarantor bank’s claim, brought within the principal debtor’s bankruptcy case, to invalidate a guarantee containing an ICC clause, finding the Article 22 restrictions inapplicable to that dispute (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 23 February 2023 in case No. 911/2977/21 (911/3687/21)). As the guarantee was not a transaction concluded by the debtor, the judgment leaves open whether claims to invalidate the debtor’s own transactions, which Article 20(1)(8) CommPC assigns to the bankruptcy court and Article 22(1)(2) excludes from arbitration, could be arbitrated; since Articles II(1) and V(2)(a) NYC leave arbitrability to national law, the answer would turn on whether that exclusion is read as a rule of arbitrability or merely as one allocating jurisdiction among state courts. Public-law disputes are not arbitrable.

Finally, a clause naming a non-existent institution is incapable of performance only where nothing in it, such as a seat or rules, reveals the parties’ intention (Grand Chamber, judgment of 28 August 2018 in case No. 906/493/16); references to “the arbitration court of the defendant’s side, in accordance with its rules” (Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 16 August 2022 in case No. 916/3245/21) and to arbitration “in accordance with the legislation of the seller’s country” (judgment of 19 November 2025 in case No. 924/389/25, which treated the reference as a mere choice of governing law identifying no institution, rules or seat) failed that test. Article 2(3) ICAC Rules cures misnaming of the ICAC.

Article 16(1) ICA Law treats an arbitration clause as an agreement independent of the other terms of the contract, so that the nullity of the contract does not entail ipso jure the invalidity of the clause. The Supreme Court applies the principle consistently. The contract and the clause may be governed by different laws (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 3 March 2020 in case No. 920/241/19), and the clause survives expiry of the contract term (Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 26 March 2026 in case No. 911/2568/25), assignment of the claim, as between the original parties (Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 10 February 2022 in case No. 824/116/21) and unilateral termination, the merits of which a court considering referral must not examine (Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 12 February 2026 in case No. 911/2618/25). Broad clauses (“arising out of or in connection with”) cover disputes over the validity of the contract itself.

The one recognised limit is forgery: where the document containing the clause is proven to be forged, the clause falls with it, since separability presupposes that the parties actually agreed to something (Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 26 February 2020 in case No. 756/618/14-ц). The procedural characterisation of the arbitration agreement (see Question 19) reinforces separability.

Ukrainian law has no choice-of-law validation rule comparable to Article 178(2) of the Swiss Private International Law Act. The conflict rules (see Question 12) are fixed and do not invite the court to select whichever candidate law upholds the agreement.

Ukrainian law does, however, have a statutory pro-validity rule of interpretation. Article 22(3) CommPC, and for domestic arbitration Article 21(2) CPC, requires any inaccuracies in an arbitration agreement, and any doubts as to its validity, effectiveness and enforceability, to be construed in favour of validity, effectiveness and enforceability. The Supreme Court relies on it routinely, together with Article II NYC, which it reads as requiring the same pro-arbitration construction and as establishing a presumption of validity (for example, Supreme Court, Grand Chamber, judgment of 1 November 2023 in case No. 910/3208/22, describing Article 22(3) CommPC and Article 21(2) CPC as the direct expression of that approach; Joint Chamber of the Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 30 August 2024 in case No. 911/1766/22, which, without citing Article 22(3), resolved a conflict between a court clause and an arbitration clause in the same contract in favour of arbitration, irrespective of which party had drafted the contract). In practice this rule often leads to the same outcome as a validation principle, but by a different route: Ukrainian courts uphold an arbitration agreement by construing it in favour of validity, not by choosing, among the laws potentially applicable to it, the one under which it is valid. The authors are not aware of any decision of the latter kind.

No statute addresses asymmetric clauses, and the authors are not aware of a published Supreme Court decision on a unilateral option clause. Practitioners report that lower courts have generally upheld such clauses, common in finance documents giving the lender a choice between arbitration and litigation, but the point has not been tested at cassation level.

Several features of Ukrainian law favour enforcement: Article 7 ICA Law does not require mutuality, and Article 22(3) CommPC works against invalidating a clause merely because it is one-sided. The risks lie elsewhere. Each forum must be identified with certainty, and the Supreme Court has refused to give effect to clauses in which the institution was “determined alternatively depending on certain conditions” without a seat or rules revealing the parties’ intention (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 16 August 2022 in case No. 916/3245/21). Once a party has elected a forum, the election is treated as binding.

Ukrainian courts have not followed the Russian Supreme Arbitrazh Court’s 2012 Sony Ericsson ruling, which treated a one-sided option to litigate as contrary to the equality of the parties, and in the authors’ view a clause between commercial parties is likely to be enforced if each forum is identified with certainty.

Ukrainian law starts from the principle that an arbitration agreement binds only its parties, but a person who joins the contract as a party is bound by its arbitration clause. The leading authority is the Grand Chamber’s judgment of 1 November 2023 in case No. 910/3208/22. A Ukrainian seller sued, in a Ukrainian court, a Ukrainian company for the price of goods sold to a foreign buyer under a GAFTA contract providing for arbitration in London. The defendant had signed, together with the seller and the buyer, a supplementary agreement to that contract, without an arbitration clause of its own, by which it assumed, as “Guarantor”, all the buyer’s obligations. The appellate court treated the supplementary agreement as a separate suretyship and let the claim proceed. The Grand Chamber, without characterising the relationship under substantive law, held that by joining the contract the defendant had accepted its arbitration clause, and that a clause extends to a person who enters the contractual relationship as a party and assumes the corresponding rights and obligations, unless the agreement has been terminated, the dispute carved out or the agreement has otherwise lost force. It declined to adopt the referring chamber’s wider test, under which a clause could bind anyone directly involved in performing the contract, so that the judgment is best read as confined to a person who has joined the contract itself. A principal is likewise bound by a clause concluded by its authorised agent.

Whether the clause passes to an assignee is less settled. The Supreme Court of Ukraine refused to stop court proceedings brought by an assignee against an original party, holding that only an arbitration agreement between the parties to the dispute itself excludes the court’s jurisdiction (judgment of 18 October 2017 in case No. 910/8318/16). The Grand Chamber has twice declined to depart from that judgment, each time because it had been given under the procedural rules in force before 15 December 2017: in 2020, over the dissent of three judges who considered that under Article 514 of the Civil Code the assignee takes the claim together with the arbitration clause (judgment of 28 April 2020 in case No. 910/11287/16), and again in case No. 910/3208/22. In the authors’ view, under the rules now in force (Articles 22(3) and 226(1)(7) CommPC), the clause passes on assignment, subrogation and universal succession. An assignment does not in any event deprive the clause of effect between the original parties (Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 10 February 2022 in case No. 824/116/21).

Beyond these cases, non-signatories are not bound. A clause covering “all disputes” does not bind a third party who challenges the contract (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 14 August 2018 in case No. 910/5253/18), and recognition has been refused where the applicant, named in a supplementary agreement only as a third party to which payment was to be made, had neither become a party to the contract nor proved an assignment (Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 21 May 2020 in case No. 824/181/19). Whether a guarantor under a separate instrument without an arbitration clause is bound by the clause in the main contract has not been decided, since in case No. 910/3208/22 the guarantor had signed the main contract itself; in the authors’ view it is not. Group-of-companies, alter ego and estoppel theories have not been used to bind a non-signatory.

There has been no legislative reform. The ICA Law contains no express conflict rule for the arbitration agreement, and the law governing the arbitration agreement must therefore be derived from the grounds for setting aside and refusing recognition and, where it applies, from the European Convention. The starting point is the law the parties have chosen for the arbitration agreement itself; failing such a choice, the main connecting factor is the seat, but the position depends on the stage at which the question arises.

In setting-aside proceedings, an award made in Ukraine may be set aside if the arbitration agreement is invalid under the law to which the parties have subjected it or, failing any indication thereon, under Ukrainian law (Article 34(2)(1) ICA Law; Article 459(2)(1)(а) CPC). In recognition proceedings, the reference is to the law chosen by the parties or, failing that, the law of the country where the award was made, generally understood as the law of the seat (Article V(1)(a) NYC; Article 36(1)(1) ICA Law; Article 478(1)(1)(а) CPC). Before an award is made, when a court decides whether to refer the parties to arbitration, the ICA Law is silent. Where the European Convention applies, its Article VI(2) points to the law chosen by the parties, failing which to the law of the country where the award is to be made and, if that country cannot yet be determined, to the law designated by the forum’s conflict rules (in Ukraine, the PIL Law). Article V(1)(a) NYC governs the recognition stage and should not be read as a conflict rule for the referral stage.

The courts accept that the main contract and the arbitration agreement may be governed by different laws (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 3 March 2020 in case No. 920/241/19) and that a Ukrainian governing-law clause does not preclude arbitration abroad (judgment of 17 April 2018 in case No. 904/4384/17). No Ukrainian decision squarely addresses whether a choice of law for the main contract extends to the arbitration clause, the question decided in England in Enka v Chubb [2020] UKSC 38 and since resolved there by the Arbitration Act 2025 in favour of the law of the seat. In the authors’ view a Ukrainian court would apply the default rules described above unless the parties clearly intended another law to govern the arbitration agreement itself.

Article 28 ICA Law reproduces Article 28 of the Model Law, so that, failing a choice by the parties, the tribunal applies the law determined by the conflict rules it considers applicable; Article 41 ICAC Rules follows the same scheme and does not permit direct application of the law the tribunal considers appropriate.

In practice tribunals seated in Ukraine apply the PIL Law (Article 4(4)), under which a choice must be express or follow clearly from the contract or the circumstances and may be made or changed at any time (Articles 5 and 43). Absent a choice, the law most closely connected with the contract applies, presumed to be that of the party effecting the characteristic performance (Articles 32 and 44). The CISG, in force for Ukraine since 1991, takes precedence for matters it governs (Article 4(5) PIL Law). Because Article 28(1) refers to “rules of law”, the parties may agree on non-national rules such as the UNIDROIT Principles; absent such an agreement, the tribunal must apply a national law determined under Article 28(2).

Article 14 PIL Law preserves Ukrainian overriding mandatory rules, notably currency regulation (including the wartime restrictions of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU)) and sanctions, and permits account to be taken of those of a closely connected state; an award disregarding them risks challenge on public policy grounds (see Question 43).

No statute prescribes qualifications for arbitrators. Absent agreement, there are three arbitrators (Article 10 ICA Law), each party appoints one and the co-arbitrators appoint the presiding arbitrator (Article 11(2)–(3)); nationality is no bar (Article 11(1)); and lack of a qualification agreed by the parties is a ground for challenge (Article 12(2)).

Under the ICAC Rules, the Presidium or President may order a sole arbitrator having regard to complexity and the amount in dispute (Article 30), and arbitrators confirm their acceptance and sign a declaration of independence and impartiality (Articles 31(3) and 32(2)). The ICAC’s Recommendatory List, approved for five years (Article 6(2)), currently includes 114 arbitrators from 38 countries; the Rules do not expressly confine appointments to it, but in practice it operates as a closed list. In 2022 the ICAC and MAC removed Russian and Belarusian nationals from their lists. Nothing otherwise bars such persons from sitting in ad hoc arbitration seated in Ukraine, although sanctions may affect payment of their fees.

Ukrainian courts play no part in constituting the tribunal. Article 6 of the Model Law allows the appointment, challenge and termination functions to be entrusted to “the court or other authority”, and Ukraine has chosen an authority other than a court: Article 6 ICA Law entrusts default appointments to the President of the UCCI, whose decisions are final (Article 11(5)). Since Law No. 4856-IX amended Article 6(1), the President acts only in ad hoc arbitration, institutional arbitration being governed by the institution’s rules; the ICAC Rules still assign default appointments to the UCCI President (Article 31), so ICAC practice is unchanged. Where the European Convention applies, a party faced with a clause that designates no institution or seat may ask the president of the competent chamber of commerce in the respondent’s country (for a Ukrainian respondent, the President of the UCCI) or the Convention’s Special Committee to take the missing measures under Article IV, and the Supreme Court has treated the parties’ failure to do so as confirming that such a clause, which named only the law of the seller’s country, was incapable of being performed, so that the dispute fell to the Ukrainian court (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 19 November 2025 in case No. 924/389/25).

The courts review the composition of the tribunal only after the award, in setting-aside or recognition proceedings (Article 459(2)(1)(г) and Article 478(1)(1)(г) CPC). Even then, the Supreme Court will not set aside an award for irregular composition where the applicant appointed its own arbitrator, took part in the proceedings without objection and challenged the composition only after losing, treating such conduct as a waiver under Article 4 ICA Law inconsistent with good faith (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 21 January 2021 in case No. 824/62/20), and it has rejected the same objection to recognition of an ICAC award where the debtor had taken part in the arbitration, aware of the tribunal’s composition, without objecting to it (judgment of 15 September 2022 in case No. 824/213/21).

Article 12(2) ICA Law follows the Model Law: an arbitrator may be challenged only if circumstances give rise to justifiable doubts as to impartiality or independence or if he or she lacks the agreed qualifications, and a party may challenge its own appointee only for reasons learned after the appointment. The challenging party bears the burden of proof.

Absent agreement, the challenge goes first to the tribunal within 15 days of the party learning of the constitution of the tribunal or of the relevant circumstances, and then, within 30 days, to the authority designated in Article 6, whose decision is final, while the tribunal may continue the proceedings (Article 13); the same authority decides on termination of the mandate (Article 14).

Under the ICAC Rules, the challenge is filed within 15 days (Article 33(2)) and decided by the ICAC Presidium (Article 33(3)), with a final request to the UCCI President within 30 days (Article 33(4)). Courts do not hear challenges, and an untimely challenge risks waiver of the objection at the setting-aside or enforcement stage (Article 4 ICA Law; Article 44 ICAC Rules).

The statutory duty of disclosure, which continues throughout the proceedings, is unchanged (Article 12(1) ICA Law; Article 32(2) ICAC Rules). The main development is institutional. On 25 August 2026 the ICAC Presidium approved the Rules of Conduct for Arbitrators (ICAC Rules of Conduct), applicable to all arbitrators in ICAC cases before, during and after the proceedings. They define independence by reference to financial, professional, business and employment relationships and confirm that previously expressed legal views do not in themselves show partiality (Article 2). Doubts about disclosure are to be resolved in favour of disclosure, although non-disclosure does not of itself establish a conflict or necessarily justify a challenge (Article 4). Further provisions cover confidentiality, availability, ex parte communications and the responsible use of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence. The Rules refer to “generally recognised international standards” without naming the IBA Guidelines or the UNCITRAL Code of Conduct, and set no sanctions for breach.

The authors are not aware of any Supreme Court decision since 2023 setting aside an award or refusing recognition for an arbitrator’s lack of independence or failure to disclose. The case law stresses that objections to the tribunal’s composition must be raised in the arbitration, and challenges to awards are dominated by public policy and jurisdiction arguments.

Arbitrators enjoy no statutory immunity. The ICAC Rules exclude the liability of arbitrators, reporters, experts, the ICAC, the UCCI and their staff for any act or omission in connection with the arbitration, unless mandatory rules provide otherwise, and release them from any obligation to make statements about ICAC proceedings (Article 69). Such an exclusion operates within the general civil law, under which liability for intentional breach of an obligation or intentionally caused harm cannot be excluded in advance. An arbitrator could therefore in theory be liable for deliberate misconduct, such as fraud or a deliberate breach of confidentiality, or for refusing without cause to perform the mandate, but in the authors’ view not for errors of fact or law, which are addressed only through setting aside and refusal of enforcement. No reported Ukrainian case has held an arbitrator civilly liable. Criminal liability is possible: Articles 365-2 and 368-4 of the Criminal Code (abuse of powers by, and bribery of, persons providing public services) expressly cover arbitrators (“treteiskyi suddia”), and in the authors’ view they extend to arbitrators in international commercial arbitration, which is itself a form of arbitral (treteiske) adjudication.

The tribunal may rule on its own jurisdiction, including objections to the existence or validity of the arbitration agreement, if the plea is raised no later than the statement of defence (Article 16(1)–(2) ICA Law). If the tribunal upholds its jurisdiction as a preliminary question, any party may within 30 days ask the appellate court at the seat to decide, without further appeal, while the arbitration continues (Articles 6(2) and 16(3) ICA Law; Article 461 CPC). In the ICAC, the President only screens the claim, leaving jurisdiction to the tribunal (Articles 4(2), 5 and 18(5) ICAC Rules).

Ukrainian doctrine has consistently recognised both the positive and the negative effect of the principle, and the courts long followed it. In 2018 the Grand Chamber held that, when deciding whether to refer the parties to arbitration, the court itself determines whether the agreement is null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed, resolving doubts and imprecise drafting in favour of the validity of the arbitration agreement, rather than applying a prima facie standard (Supreme Court, Grand Chamber, judgment of 28 August 2018 in case No. 906/493/16). In 2021, however, the Joint Chamber of the Commercial Cassation Court allowed a stand-alone claim to invalidate an arbitration agreement (judgment of 17 December 2021 in case No. 910/9841/20), a position criticised in doctrine as incompatible with Article 5 ICA Law, which allows no court intervention not provided for in that Law, and as opening a way to derail arbitration through litigation. In 2024 the Joint Chamber departed from that view (judgment of 30 August 2024 in case No. 911/1766/22). The case concerned a domestic arbitration clause, but the Chamber expressly extended its reasoning to international arbitration agreements: an arbitration agreement is not a Civil Code transaction but in substance a procedural contract, and its validity may be examined by state courts only on referral, in setting-aside proceedings and in recognition or enforcement proceedings. A stand-alone claim for invalidity therefore falls outside the jurisdiction of the commercial courts, while invalidity pleaded together with other claims is decided as a procedural question, the claim being left without consideration unless the court finds the agreement null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed. The Commercial Cassation Court has since applied both the 2018 and the 2024 judgments to uphold a defectively drafted clause referring disputes to the ICAC, construing an inconsistency between the English and Ukrainian versions of the contract in favour of arbitration (judgment of 21 September 2026 in case No. 910/12693/25).

A court seised of a dispute covered by an arbitration agreement must, on a party’s request made no later than its first statement on the substance, leave the claim without consideration and refer the parties to arbitration, unless the agreement is null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed (Article 8(1) ICA Law, applicable whatever the seat; Article 257(1)(6) CPC; Article 226(1)(7) CommPC). The arbitration may proceed in the meantime (Article 8(2) ICA Law).

The Supreme Court applies the rule consistently but formally. Courts do not raise the agreement of their own motion, and the defendant must object before its first submission on the merits (Supreme Court, Joint Chamber of the Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 16 June 2023 in case No. 926/4889/22); filing a defence together with a timely objection is not inconsistent conduct (Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 20 January 2022 in case No. 910/13813/21), but an objection first raised at a retrial is too late (judgment of 17 March 2020 in case No. 907/930/15). The rule applies also to a claim brought within a bankruptcy case, the concentration of disputes in the bankruptcy court under Article 7 of the Bankruptcy Code not displacing it (judgment of 23 February 2023 in case No. 911/2977/21 (911/3687/21)). Referral does not unduly restrict access to court under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Grand Chamber, judgment of 1 November 2023 in case No. 910/3208/22).

“Incapable of being performed” is construed narrowly, and a party’s financial difficulties do not suffice (judgment of 10 April 2018 in case No. 907/510/17). Since 2022 Ukrainian claimants have argued that clauses providing for arbitration in Russia have become incapable of being performed because of the war. The Supreme Court has not ruled on the point, largely because Russian respondents rarely appear to object and the clause has no effect without a timely objection. In the Joint Chamber case cited above, which concerned a Moscow-based respondent and a clause providing for arbitration under Russian law, the Court held that the court must open proceedings and may not refuse to do so on the ground of the arbitration agreement (para 62). A first-instance court has found recourse to the ICAC at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation impossible because of the war, the severance of diplomatic relations and the practical impossibility of paying the arbitration fee (Commercial Court of Dnipropetrovsk Region, judgment of 18 April 2023 in case No. 904/452/23). Conversely, the Commercial Cassation Court has rejected, for lack of evidence, the argument that a domestic arbitral institution in Kharkiv could not function under martial law (judgment of 1 April 2025 in case No. 913/117/24, paras 8.28–8.29). The authors consider that a case-specific showing of impossibility, rather than a presumption based on the seat, is required.

Default does not stop the arbitration: as under the Model Law, the tribunal continues without treating the default as an admission and may decide on the evidence before it (Article 25(2)–(3) ICA Law). Going further, Article 25(4) allows the tribunal, where requested evidence is not produced, to treat the fact as established, decline to do so or decide on the evidence available (see also Article 49 ICAC Rules).

Proper notice remains essential, since its absence is a ground for setting aside and refusal of enforcement. The Supreme Court treats a respondent’s refusal to accept the statement of claim or notice of hearing as proper notification (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 20 May 2021 in case No. 824/183/20) and considers notice grounds only when the respondent invokes them (judgment of 17 September 2021 in case No. 824/199/20). Under the ICAC Rules, a notification sent to a party’s e-mail address is deemed received on the day it is sent (Article 11(5)), which limits the effect of wartime postal disruption.

Ukrainian courts cannot compel participation. A defaulting respondent may still resist enforcement, subject to the waiver rule in Article 4 ICA Law where it knew of the proceedings and failed to object.

The ICA Law does not regulate joinder or intervention, which depend on the parties’ agreement and the applicable rules. Under Article 22 ICAC Rules, a third party may join or be joined where it and all the parties are bound by the arbitration agreement or where all of them agree, the request being made before the time limit for the statement of defence expires, subject to extension.

Where all concerned agree, the tribunal would ordinarily give effect to the agreement, although it retains its case-management discretion and the arbitrators’ consent may be needed if joinder substantially alters their mandate. Without universal consent, joinder is possible only if the third party and all the parties are bound by the same arbitration agreement; a tribunal cannot impose participation on a person not bound or force a non-party on objecting parties. The Rules do not address how a party joined after constitution of the tribunal may participate in constituting it, and there is no case law on the point. Since July 2024 the ICAC President may accept a single claim under several contracts with compatible arbitration clauses (Article 17(2) ICAC Rules), but there is no power to consolidate separate proceedings without the parties’ agreement.

The tribunal’s powers remain those of the 1985 Model Law: unless otherwise agreed, it may order a party to take interim measures in respect of the subject matter of the dispute and require appropriate security (Article 17 ICA Law). Under the ICAC Rules, the ICAC President before the tribunal is formed, and the tribunal thereafter, may order proportionate measures securing the claim, with possible counter-security (Articles 25 and 27). There is no procedure for enforcing measures ordered by a tribunal seated in Ukraine, so compliance depends on the parties.

Court assistance is more effective and is compatible with the arbitration agreement, including where the seat is abroad (Articles 1(1) and 9 ICA Law; Article 149(3) CPC). The application goes, at the applicant’s choice, to the appellate court for the seat or for the location of the respondent or its assets (Article 152(3) CPC), with the request for arbitration and proof of its filing (Article 151(7)), and is decided within two days without notice (Article 153(1)). Counter-security is mandatory where the applicant has neither a registered address nor sufficient assets in Ukraine (Article 154(3)), and the measures lapse if the tribunal declines to hear the case or terminates the proceedings (Article 158(14)). Courts will not act before the arbitration has been commenced (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 30 June 2022, proceedings No. 61-4257ав22), but once the request for arbitration is filed, relief is available, whether or not the tribunal has been constituted, on proof of a dispute pending in the arbitration and of a real risk that the future award will not be enforced (judgment of 24 September 2018 in case No. 785/1018/18, attachment of goods three weeks after a GAFTA arbitration was commenced), and measures securing enforcement in recognition proceedings may be directed only at the debtor’s own property, not at shares or other assets of other persons (judgment of 25 January 2019 in case No. 796/165/18). During martial law and for two years thereafter, measures against certain state-controlled critical infrastructure operators are barred (Article 150(15) CPC).

There are no specific rules on anti-suit or anti-arbitration injunctions. Ukrainian courts did issue anti-arbitration injunctions before the 2017 reform, the best-documented example being a 2006 order restraining participation in the UNCITRAL arbitration between Telenor and Storm over Kyivstar, which a New York court countered with an anti-suit injunction (Telenor Mobile Communications AS v Storm LLC, US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 8 October 2009). Under the present law such an order would be difficult to reconcile with Articles 5 and 8(2) ICA Law, and the authors are not aware of any anti-arbitration injunction issued by a Ukrainian court since 2017. In the opposite direction, Russian courts restrain Ukrainian parties from pursuing arbitration abroad under Article 248.1 of the Russian Arbitrazh Procedure Code; in January 2024, for example, the Arbitrazh Court of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region prohibited Naftogaz from continuing ICC arbitration No. 27245/GL against Gazprom under the threat of a penalty of about US$150 million (case No. A56-124094/2023, full text of 22 January 2024), and a broader order extending to enforcement of any resulting award was reported in 2025. Such orders have no effect in Ukraine, and an application to recognise one would fail at the latest on public policy grounds. Foreign tribunal-ordered relief is assessed under the NYC (see Question 35).

The ICA Law leaves evidence largely to the tribunal, which determines admissibility, relevance and weight (Article 19(2)), may appoint experts (Article 26) and may draw adverse inferences (Article 25(4)); under the ICAC Rules each party proves the facts on which it relies, and the tribunal may request documents from parties and third persons and hear witnesses and experts (Articles 52–55). Tribunals draw on the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence for guidance, particularly on document production, but parties rarely adopt them formally; witnesses are not sworn, and cross-examination is less extensive than in common law practice.

The tribunal has no coercive powers, but court assistance is available. Under Article 27 ICA Law, the tribunal, or a party with its consent, may request assistance from the appellate court where the evidence is located or the witness resides, and the CPC provides specific procedures: the court may order production of evidence (Article 84(11)), inspect evidence where it is located (Article 85(9)), examine a witness on questions set by the tribunal, with the parties entitled to participate (Article 94), and secure evidence at risk of loss (Articles 116(7)–(8) and 117(5)). A summoned witness must appear and testify truthfully (Article 69(2)) and may be brought before the court by compulsion (Article 147), but testifies before the court rather than the tribunal. Article 27 ICA Law applies only where the seat is in Ukraine (Article 1(1)); the CPC provisions are not so limited, but their use in support of foreign-seated arbitration is untested, and in practice these procedures are rarely used.

Ukrainian advocates are bound by the Rules of Advocate Ethics of 9 June 2017, as amended on 15 February 2019, which govern all their professional activity, including representation in arbitration, and are enforced by the bar’s qualification and disciplinary commissions. They apply to advocates registered in Ukraine, including foreign advocates admitted under the Law “On the Bar and Practice of Law” No. 5076-VI of 5 July 2012, but not to foreign lawyers who are not so registered.

Representation in arbitration is not reserved to advocates, whose constitutional monopoly concerns representation in state courts. The ICAC Rules allow representatives of the parties’ choice, including foreign nationals and organisations, but prohibit a change of representative after the tribunal is formed where it would create a ground for challenging an arbitrator or setting aside the award (Article 36(2)). Foreign counsel therefore regularly appear without Ukrainian admission, subject only to their home professional rules.

Arbitrators are governed by Article 12 ICA Law, Article 32 ICAC Rules and, in ICAC cases, the ICAC Rules of Conduct (see Question 17), which apply irrespective of nationality, bar membership or inclusion in the Recommendatory List. Ad hoc arbitrators are bound only by the ICA Law and any rules the parties adopt.

The ICA Law contains no confidentiality provision, so in ad hoc arbitration confidentiality depends on the parties’ agreement, although Ukrainian doctrine regards it as inherent in arbitration. The ICAC Rules provide a comprehensive regime. Hearings are held in camera, and non-participants may attend only with the tribunal’s permission and the parties’ consent (Article 47(1)); unless otherwise agreed, proceedings are confidential (Article 68(1)); the tribunal and the parties must keep non-public documents confidential (Article 68(2)); and arbitrators, the ICAC, the UCCI and their staff must not disclose information that may damage the legitimate interests of the parties or the ICAC (Article 68(3)). The ICAC Rules of Conduct extend the arbitrators’ duty to deliberations and draft awards beyond the end of the proceedings and restrict public comment that could identify the parties or the dispute (Article 3).

Confidentiality ends where court proceedings begin. Setting-aside and recognition applications are heard in public (Article 7(1) CPC), and rulings, which often reproduce the award at length, are published in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions; a closed hearing is available only to protect secret or other legally protected information, such as trade secrets (Article 7(7) CPC), and is granted narrowly. Statutory disclosure duties, for example in financial monitoring, tax and sanctions compliance, create further exceptions.

The IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest are well known among Ukrainian practitioners and regarded as persuasive rather than binding. Arbitrators use them in deciding what to disclose, and practitioners report that the ICAC Presidium takes them into account, together with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on impartiality, when deciding challenges, although its decisions are unpublished. The ICAC Rules of Conduct reflect them on disclosure in case of doubt and on prior legal views without naming them.

Ukrainian courts have relied on the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest when assessing an arbitrator’s independence, so far only in domestic arbitration and in their 2014 version. Citing the Guidelines and their Red, Orange and Green Lists, the Commercial Cassation Court set aside an award of a domestic arbitration court whose arbitrator had failed to disclose professional and organisational links with a party and its counsel (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 11 February 2021 in case No. 870/89/20), and the Civil Cassation Court did the same, on the same reasoning, where the arbitrator was a beneficial owner of the association that had established the arbitration court and the claimant’s representative was a senior partner of a law firm among the association’s founders (Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 14 November 2024 in case No. 824/16/24). In 2026 the Commercial Cassation Court drew on the IBA Guidelines for Drafting International Arbitration Clauses (2010) in upholding a defectively drafted clause referring disputes to the ICAC (judgment of 21 September 2026 in case No. 910/12693/25). The authors have not identified any court decision or published ICAC ruling addressing the 2024 revisions of the IBA Guidelines (the expanded Orange List, social media conduct and parties’ due diligence) or the UNCITRAL Code of Conduct for Arbitrators in International Investment Dispute Resolution (2023). The UNCITRAL Code may nonetheless gain relevance now that Law No. 4856-IX has opened the ICAC to investor-State disputes, for which its adoption would be a natural step.

Beyond requiring the award to deal with costs, the ICA Law leaves them to the applicable rules. At the ICAC, costs are largely predictable under the Schedule of Arbitration Fees and Costs annexed to the ICAC Rules: a non-refundable registration fee of USD 600 is credited against an arbitration fee on a regressive scale (USD 1,800 for claims up to USD 10,000, USD 20,200 for a claim of USD 1 million, capped at USD 350,000), which covers the arbitrators’ fees and is reduced by 20% for a sole arbitrator. The claimant pays the whole fee up front (Article 16), with a partial refund if the case ends early. Unless otherwise agreed, the losing party bears the fee, apportioned on partial success, although the tribunal may depart from this rule, in particular to sanction bad faith. Reasonable legal costs may be shifted if claimed before the hearing closes, but ICAC tribunals examine fee evidence closely.

Interest for the period up to the award may be claimed together with the principal; whether it is due, and at what rate, is a matter of the law governing the substance. Under Article 625(2) of the Civil Code, a debtor in delay on a monetary obligation owes the debt adjusted for inflation plus 3% per annum unless a contract or statute provides otherwise, the inflation adjustment applying only to obligations denominated in hryvnia (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court (Bankruptcy Chamber), judgment of 8 December 2022 in case No. 921/542/20); the statutory 3% is a minimum that courts may not reduce, whereas a higher contractual rate may be reduced and inflation losses, which form part of the monetary obligation rather than a penalty, may not be reduced at all (Supreme Court, Grand Chamber, judgment of 2 July 2025 in case No. 903/602/24). Contractual penalties (Articles 549–552) may be reduced by the court (Article 551(3)). Since the repeal of the Commercial Code with effect from 28 August 2025, Article 549(3) has provided a default late-payment penalty of twice the NBU discount rate; whether the Commercial Code rules still govern earlier obligations is unsettled. During martial law, borrowers under credit and loan agreements are exempt from liability under Article 625 (paragraph 18 of the Final and Transitional Provisions).

Post-award interest is also available. A court judgment ordering payment does not terminate the monetary obligation, and the creditor retains its right to the sums due under Article 625(2) of the Civil Code until payment (Grand Chamber, judgment of 4 June 2019 in case No. 916/190/18, para 41); the same reasoning applies to an award. Courts once regarded an award providing for interest until payment without stating the final sum as contrary to public policy, and in the authors’ experience ICAC tribunals declined to award interest that could not be quantified in the award. That obstacle has been removed: under Article 479(4)–(5) CPC, in force since 1 January 2019, the court recognising an award that provides for interest or penalties accruing on its terms states in its ruling that they accrue until performance, the final amount being calculated by the enforcement officer, and the Grand Chamber, in a case concerning a GAFTA award decided before that provision took effect, held that such a calculation neither interferes with the matters governed by the arbitration agreement nor offends public policy (Supreme Court, Grand Chamber, ruling of 15 May 2018 in case No. 759/16206/14-ц, para 63). An award may therefore provide for interest until payment by stating its rate and base, and will be enforced in Ukraine accordingly.

Security for costs plays almost no role in Ukrainian practice. The ICA Law addresses security twice: the tribunal may require security in connection with interim measures (Article 17(1)) and, since 2017, may order the parties to deposit a predetermined amount of the costs of the arbitration (Article 17(2)), which secures the costs of the proceedings rather than a party’s legal costs. The ICAC Rules provide for security for the claim and a cross-undertaking (Articles 25 and 27) but not for security for the respondent’s costs. The ICAC’s financial model also reduces the need, since the claimant pays the full arbitration fee in advance and only the respondent’s legal costs, usually recovered in modest amounts, remain exposed. The authors are not aware of any published order for security for costs by a tribunal seated in Ukraine. Nothing in Ukrainian law would prevent enforcement of such an order made under rules that expressly allow it, such as those of the ICC, LCIA or SCC.

Courts will not order security for costs in support of an arbitration, since measures under Article 149(3) CPC secure the claim only. In court proceedings, however, Article 135(4) CPC allows the court, on the defendant’s application, to require the claimant to deposit security for the defendant’s future legal costs where the claim appears abusive or the claimant has no registered seat and insufficient assets in Ukraine. A respondent could in principle invoke this against a foreign applicant in setting-aside or recognition proceedings, but no such application has been reported.

The same regime, under the NYC, Articles 35 and 36 ICA Law and Articles 474–482 CPC, applies to foreign awards and to international awards made in Ukraine, including ICAC awards (Article 482 CPC). Law No. 4856-IX did not alter the grounds or procedure, but arbitrability (Article 478(1)(2)(а) CPC) must now be assessed against the wider Article 1 ICA Law (see Question 4).

The application is filed with the Kyiv Court of Appeal within three years of the date of the award, restorable for good cause (Article 475(3)–(4) CPC), where the debtor is domiciled or registered in Ukraine or has property there (Article 475(1)–(2)). The certified original award or a notarised copy, the original arbitration agreement or a notarised copy, proof of payment of the modest court fee and certified Ukrainian translations must be attached (Article 476(4)); an application lacking the original or a notarised copy of the arbitration agreement is left without consideration (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 9 March 2023 in case No. 824/80/22), and originals of documents filed electronically must be produced before the hearing (Article 476(6)). No exequatur at the seat is required (judgment of 24 October 2018 in case No. 264/1297/17).

The court does not review the merits. The respondent must prove the grounds in Article 478(1)(1) CPC, which reproduce Article V(1) NYC, while arbitrability and public policy are examined of the court’s own motion, so that a court errs in leaving public policy to the parties (judgment of 15 January 2026 in case No. 824/157/23). Outside sanctions cases (see Question 43), the restrictive approach to public policy is settled: neither the strategic importance of a state-owned debtor nor the impact of payment on its finances and operations justifies refusal, and an award that does not oblige the debtor to do anything unlawful and does not affect the social and economic foundations of the State does not engage public policy (judgments of 6 March 2025 in case No. 824/32/24 and, in setting-aside proceedings, 18 July 2024 in case No. 824/7/24).

Unlike the Model Law, Article 31(2) ICA Law requires every award to state the reasons on which it is based, together with the decision on the claims and the allocation of fees and costs, and admits no exception for agreed unreasoned awards; Article 60(6) ICAC Rules is to the same effect. The absence of reasons is nevertheless not in itself a ground for refusing recognition of a foreign award. An unreasoned foreign award could be attacked only indirectly, under Article 478(1)(1)(г) CPC or on public policy grounds, with little prospect of success where it is valid at the seat; there is no Ukrainian decision on the point.

The Kyiv Court of Appeal must decide within two months (Article 477(1) CPC), but the procedure consumes most of that period: the debtor is notified within five days and has one month to object (Article 477(4)), and the hearing must be notified at least ten days in advance (Article 477(5)). With a debtor in Ukraine and no complications, a first-instance ruling within two to four months is realistic (in case No. 824/157/23 the application was filed on 15 December 2023 and granted on 16 February 2024), and an appeal to the Supreme Court, to be lodged within thirty days (Articles 479(7) and 354(1) CPC), typically adds three to six months (in case No. 824/118/22 the ruling of 26 December 2022 was upheld on 23 March 2023).

Delays arise mainly from stays and from service abroad. The court may stay recognition pending a set-aside application (Article 477(7); see Question 37): in case No. 824/235/2018 an ICC award of June 2018 was recognised only on 3 October 2019, after a stay had been reversed on appeal. In the prosecutor’s appeal in case No. 824/157/23, opened on 19 February 2025 and decided on 15 January 2026, the Supreme Court approached in turn the creditor’s former counsel and the Lithuanian authorities under the Hague Service Convention, achieved service under the bilateral legal assistance treaty only on 30 October 2025, and then summoned the creditor to the adjourned hearing by an announcement on the judiciary’s website.

There is no ex parte procedure (Article 477(1)), but interim measures securing enforcement may be sought at any stage and are decided within two days without notice (Articles 477(3) and 153(1)), and a debtor’s application for permission to perform voluntarily is heard within ten days without notice to the creditor (Article 480(3)).

The standard of review is the same for foreign awards and for international awards made in Ukraine (Articles 478 and 482 CPC), except that a respondent to a Ukrainian-seated award may also apply to set it aside and have both applications heard together (Article 482(3)). Domestic awards of arbitration courts follow a separate regime, with a fifteen-day time limit and different grounds for refusal (Articles 483–486).

The writ of execution issued on recognition (Article 479(10)) is enforced by the State Enforcement Service or, subject to statutory exceptions, a private enforcement officer, who calculates interest continuing to run under the award (Article 479(5); see Question 28). Martial-law moratoria may suspend enforcement against certain debtors, notably defence-sector state enterprises, without affecting recognition (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 9 February 2023 in case No. 824/87/22; see Question 43). A debtor cannot obtain a deferral of enforcement from the court that granted recognition: the appellate court does not hear the case as a court of first instance within the meaning of Article 435 CPC and Article 33 of the Law “On Enforcement Proceedings”, since it exercises only supervisory powers over the award without deciding the dispute on the merits (judgment of 12 September 2024 in case No. 824/32/22).

There is no appeal on the merits. The only recourse is an application to set aside (Article 34(1) ICA Law), available only where the seat is in Ukraine and only to the parties (Article 454(1)–(2) CPC). It is filed with the appellate court at the seat, in practice the Kyiv Court of Appeal (Article 454(4)), within three months of the applicant’s receipt of the award or of the tribunal’s decision on a request for correction, interpretation or an additional award (Article 454(6)), and that time limit cannot be restored, Article 454(7) allowing restoration only for domestic awards. The court decides within thirty days (Article 457(1)) and may, at a party’s request, suspend the proceedings so that the tribunal can cure the defect (Article 457(7)). Setting aside does not preclude a new arbitration (Article 459(3)).

The grounds are exhaustive and reproduce Article 34(2) of the Model Law (Article 34(2) ICA Law; Article 459(2) CPC). The applicant must prove that:

• a party lacked capacity, or the arbitration agreement is invalid under the chosen law or, failing a choice, Ukrainian law;
• it was not properly notified of the appointment of an arbitrator or of the proceedings, or was otherwise unable to present its case;
• the award deals with a dispute outside, or beyond the scope of, the arbitration agreement; or
• the composition of the tribunal or the procedure did not accord with the parties’ agreement or, failing agreement, with the law.

The court also sets an award aside of its own motion if the dispute is not arbitrable or the award conflicts with Ukrainian public policy (Articles 457(4) and 459(2)(2) CPC; see Question 30). The Supreme Court places the burden of proof on the applicant and holds that, since Article 5 ICA Law excludes court intervention not provided for in that Law, the court may not review the award on the merits or re-examine or reassess it in full (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 18 July 2024 in case No. 824/7/24), although a manifest breach of fundamental procedural principles such as party disposition and adversarial proceedings may violate public policy (judgment of 21 October 2022 in case No. 824/309/21). Objections not raised in the arbitration are treated as waived under Article 4 ICA Law (judgment of 6 February 2019 in case No. 761/5425/16-ц, where the applicant had held back its objection to the composition of the tribunal until after an adverse award, conduct the Court treated as an abuse of rights contrary to good faith, and judgment of 11 December 2025 in case No. 824/90/25, applying Article 4 together with Article 44 ICAC Rules where the respondent had expressly accepted the ICAC’s jurisdiction despite insolvency proceedings against it in Estonia). The judgment of the appellate court may be appealed to the Supreme Court within the thirty-day period applicable to appeals against judgments (Articles 460(3) and 354(1) CPC), although the Kyiv Court of Appeal has occasionally indicated fifteen days in its rulings, and the Supreme Court’s judgment on appeal is final.

No statute provides for agreements excluding setting aside. Since Article 34 ICA Law and Article 459 CPC are mandatory and Article 454(8) CPC does not list a waiver among the grounds for declining to open proceedings, waiver language such as Article 35(6) of the ICC Rules does not bar a challenge in Ukraine, and the arbitrability and public policy grounds could not be waived in any event.

An award binds the parties and their universal successors; where a state enterprise was converted into a joint-stock company after the award, the Supreme Court treated the company, as successor to all the enterprise’s rights and obligations, as the award debtor and dismissed its application to set the award aside, without discussing succession as a separate issue (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 18 July 2024 in case No. 824/7/24). A subsequent assignment of the claim does not bar leave to enforce at the request of the creditor named in the award (judgment of 29 April 2021 in case No. 824/210/20), whereas permission to perform an award voluntarily in favour of a non-party has been refused where neither the alleged assignment nor any decision transferring the rights was produced (judgment of 19 March 2020 in case No. 824/79/19, on the award debtor’s application); awards are not extended to non-parties on veil-piercing or group-of-companies theories (see Question 11). An unrecognised foreign award does not bar fresh court proceedings between the same parties (Commercial Cassation Court, judgment of 15 September 2021 in case No. 904/2267/20), and in bankruptcy an award is not binding proof of the claim (judgment of 2 June 2022 in case No. 908/3106/20).

Third parties’ standing to oppose an award is limited, although it has grown in sanctions cases. Only the parties may apply to set aside an international award, whereas non-parties whose rights were decided may challenge a domestic award (Article 454(1) CPC). The court may join an affected third party in recognition proceedings (Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 27 June 2018 in case No. 519/15/17), but only the parties may appeal a recognition ruling (Article 479(7) CPC; judgment of 9 December 2020 in case No. 761/37045/15-ц; ruling of 10 November 2020 in case No. 824/66/19, treating Article 479(7) as a special rule displacing the general right of appeal of affected non-parties under Article 352 CPC). More recent judgments depart from this in practice: in judgments of 18 December 2024 in case No. 824/107/23 and 15 January 2026 in case No. 824/157/23, the Supreme Court allowed a prosecutor acting for the State, through the Ministry of Justice, to appeal recognition rulings under the general rules in Articles 56 and 352 CPC and Article 23 of the Law “On the Prosecutor’s Office”. The basis is not a change in legislation, Article 479(7) still referring to the parties, but the Court’s doctrine that where private-law instruments are used to evade public obligations or release assets from public restrictions, the decision affects the interests of the competent state body (Joint Chamber of the Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 5 September 2019 in case No. 638/2304/17). Having found that the proceedings had been used to remove assets from the reach of sanctions, the Court refused recognition on public policy grounds (see Question 43); it did not address its 2020 reading of Article 479(7). Whether private third parties, such as other creditors of the debtor, may rely on Article 352 remains unsettled.

Non-parties whose property was affected have also appealed interim measures in recognition proceedings: in case No. 796/165/18 (judgment of 25 January 2019) the Supreme Court heard appeals by Ukrainian banks and their Russian parent companies on the merits and partly allowed them, without discussing their standing, and it also heard, and dismissed on the merits, their appeals against the recognition ruling itself. An award-based claim may also be refused in the debtor’s bankruptcy: in case No. 909/130/24 the bankruptcy court refused to enter such a claim in the register and closed the proceedings, finding a scheme to evade sanctions, and this was upheld on appeal and by the Supreme Court on 17 June 2025 (as recited in the judgment of 15 January 2026 in case No. 824/157/23, paragraphs 60–61).

Third-party funding is not regulated in Ukraine: there is no statute or soft-law instrument on it, maintenance and champerty are unknown, and nothing bars a non-party from financing an arbitration for a share of the proceeds. The funding agreement is governed by freedom of contract under the Civil Code, which generally permits assignment of claims, including award claims (Articles 512–519). A later assignment does not prevent recognition in favour of the creditor named in the award, an alleged assignment must be proved (see Question 33), and courts will look behind an assignment or suretyship created to evade sanctions (see Question 43). The authors are not aware of any decision on the validity of a funding agreement or on the recoverability of funding costs.

No rule prohibits success fees: the Grand Chamber has treated a fixed bonus payable to counsel on a favourable outcome as part of the advocate’s fee under Article 30 of the Law “On the Bar and Practice of Law” and Article 28 of the Rules of Advocate Ethics, and thus as part of recoverable costs, while holding that fee arrangements bind only advocate and client and that the court shifts such costs to the losing party only to the extent that they were actually incurred, necessary and reasonable in amount (Supreme Court, Grand Chamber, judgment of 12 May 2020 in case No. 904/4507/18). Percentage-based contingency fees have not been addressed, but in the authors’ view the same analysis applies. The Rules expressly contemplate a legal services agreement concluded and paid for by a person acting in the client’s interests (Article 28), which accommodates a funder paying counsel’s fees; but since an advocate must act solely in the client’s interest and keep its confidences, a funder cannot instruct counsel, and privileged material may be shared with a prospective funder only with the client’s consent.

Neither the ICA Law nor the ICAC Rules require disclosure of funding; a tribunal sitting in Ukraine would most likely apply the 2024 IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest, which treat a funder with a direct economic interest in the award as bearing the identity of the funded party. In practice funding is used mainly by Ukrainian claimants in high-value proceedings seated abroad and rarely, if at all, in ICAC arbitrations.

Neither the ICA Law, which lacks Chapter IV A of the Model Law, nor the ICAC Rules provide for an emergency arbitrator, and Law No. 4856-IX did not address the point. The gap is partly filled by Article 25(1) ICAC Rules, under which the ICAC President may order interim measures before the tribunal is formed; such an order binds the parties and must be complied with immediately (Article 25(4)), but, like any tribunal order, it cannot be enforced through the courts. Courts may assist only once the arbitration has been commenced (Article 151(7) CPC), so pre-arbitral relief is unavailable in Ukraine.

Foreign emergency arbitrator decisions have twice reached the Supreme Court, and recognition was refused both times. In JKX Oil & Gas v Ukraine (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 19 September 2018 in case No. 757/5777/15-ц), leave to enforce an SCC emergency award of 14 January 2015 was refused on public policy grounds and for non-compliance with the ECT cooling-off period, treated as a ground under Article V(1)(b) NYC. In the VEB.RF case (judgment of 14 January 2021 in case No. 824/178/19), recognition of an SCC emergency arbitrator decision of 28 August 2019 was refused on public policy grounds because it would have halted enforcement of the Everest Estate award already recognised in Ukraine. In neither case did the Court decide whether an emergency decision is an “award”, so the question remains open and such relief cannot be regarded as readily enforceable.

The ICA Law has no expedited or small-claims procedure, although the parties may agree on a documents-only process (Article 24(1)). Article 45 ICAC Rules provides for expedited proceedings on an opt-in basis and without any monetary threshold, applicable only where the arbitration agreement so provides or the parties agree no later than the filing of the statement of defence. The ordinary Rules apply with specific exceptions. The arbitration fee is payable within 15 days (Article 45(3)); the defence, and any counterclaim or set-off claim, are due within 10 days of receipt of the statement of claim, and the written exchange is limited to those submissions unless the tribunal or, before its formation, the Secretary General allows more (Article 45(4)); the case is decided on the documents unless a party requests a hearing without undue delay or the tribunal considers one expedient, in which case the parties are summoned at least 15 days in advance (Article 45(5)). Unless otherwise agreed, a sole arbitrator decides, appointed by the President of the UCCI if the parties fail to agree within 10 days, and where three arbitrators are agreed the same 10-day periods apply (Article 45(6)). The award is due within 20 days of the end of the hearing (Article 45(7)). Having regard to the complexity of the case or an amendment of the claims, the tribunal, or before its formation the President of the ICAC, may decide that expedited treatment is inappropriate, the case then continuing before the same tribunal (Article 45(8)). The Schedule of Arbitration Fees and Costs grants no reduction for expedited proceedings as such, but since a sole arbitrator decides unless otherwise agreed, the general 20% reduction for a sole arbitrator usually applies (Section III(3)). The MAC Rules follow the same structure.

No statistics are published, but the procedure appears to be used rarely, because few contracts provide for it and respondents seldom agree to it once a dispute has arisen. Ordinary ICAC proceedings are in any event comparatively quick and inexpensive, and documents-only proceedings by agreement (Article 46) achieve much the same effect.

Ukrainian courts have not, to the authors’ knowledge, refused recognition of a foreign award because it had been set aside at the seat or recognised an award despite its annulment, and no award set aside in Ukraine is known to have been enforced abroad. Under Article 478(1)(1)(ґ) CPC, which reproduces Article V(1)(e) NYC but in mandatory terms (“the court refuses”), an award set aside or suspended at the seat would probably be refused recognition as a matter of course. Between states party to the European Convention, however, Article IX admits only annulments on the grounds listed in Article IX(1), so that an annulment on a purely local ground, such as domestic public policy, should not bar recognition in Ukraine; no Ukrainian court has yet applied Article IX. Pending annulment proceedings may justify a stay (Article 477(7) CPC and, for awards made in Ukraine, Article 482(2) CPC; for foreign awards also Article VI NYC, applied in Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 30 May 2019 in case No. 824/235/2018), which is discretionary and must be reasoned, the court weighing the parties’ good faith (judgment of 1 September 2022 in case No. 824/32/22, reversing a stay sought by a debtor that had applied to set aside the award only after the enforcement application had been filed).

The closest examples are the Crimea awards against the Russian Federation. Enforcement of the Everest Estate award of 2 May 2018 was granted in Kyiv on 25 September 2018 and upheld on 25 January 2019 (case No. 796/165/18) without discussion of Russia’s set-aside and revocation proceedings in the Netherlands. In those proceedings the Dutch Supreme Court remitted the case to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal on 6 December 2024 (ECLI:NL:HR:2024:1812), and the authors are not aware of a final decision since. Abroad, the Naftogaz case illustrates the opposite sequence. The Hague Court of Appeal had already partially set aside the tribunal’s partial award on jurisdiction and liability of 22 February 2019, holding that Article 12 of the 1998 Ukraine-Russia BIT protects only investments made on or after 1 January 1992 (judgment of 19 July 2022). In the annulment proceedings against the final award of 12 April 2023, which granted approximately US$4.22 billion in compensation plus interest and costs, it indicated in an interim judgment of 22 September 2026 its provisional view that the award must be partially set aside because a large part of the assets was not shown to be such investments. Recognition of the award in other jurisdictions in the meantime raises precisely the question of the effect of a later partial annulment at the seat.

No published Supreme Court decision, to the authors’ knowledge, has set aside or refused recognition of an award for bribery in the underlying contract or corruption of an arbitrator. Such allegations would fall under the public policy ground (Articles 459(2)(2)(б) and 478(1)(2)(б) CPC), which would cover a contract procured by bribery or an award used to launder the proceeds of crime. The Supreme Court has described that ground as designed, among other things, to prevent recognition and enforcement of awards “connected with corruption” (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 11 December 2025 in case No. 824/90/25).

The closest recent case law concerns artificially created debts. The Supreme Court refused recognition of awards, made by the same sole arbitrator under the UNCITRAL Rules, that were used to withdraw assets from the reach of sanctions (Civil Cassation Court, judgments of 18 December 2024 in case No. 824/107/23 and 15 January 2026 in case No. 824/157/23, the latter concerning an ad hoc award resting on a debt artificially assumed by the debtor; see Question 43). In the 2026 judgment it treated findings of the High Anti-Corruption Court as prejudicial and held that the court protects public policy of its own motion and may take the initiative in examining evidence where the evidence submitted raises doubts, without acting as an investigating authority (paragraphs 158–159). A pending criminal investigation does not by itself justify a stay.

No rule specific to corruption allocates the burden of proof: under Article 81 CPC the party asserting a ground for setting aside or refusal must prove it, and unsupported public policy objections are routinely rejected (judgment of 11 December 2025 in case No. 824/90/25, which did not concern corruption). The CPC sets no numerical standard: the court must find the evidence reliable and sufficient and assesses it by its inner conviction (Articles 79, 80 and 89). Article 79 CommPC adopts a “probability of evidence” test, civil courts take a comparable approach, and no heightened standard for corruption has been articulated. A criminal conviction binds the civil court as to whether the acts took place and who committed them (Article 82(6) CPC); without one, the court weighs circumstantial evidence (“red flags”) under the ordinary standard.

Ukraine has neither withdrawn from the ECT nor announced an intention to do so. It signed the Treaty on 17 December 1994, ratified it by Law No. 89/98-ВР of 6 February 1998 and has been bound by it since 27 January 1999. According to the Energy Charter Secretariat’s report on 2025 (CCDEC 2025 21 NOT), Ukraine was not among the states that declared, by the deadline of 3 March 2025, that they would not apply provisionally the modernisation amendments adopted by Conference decision CCDEC 2024 15 GEN. Those amendments to the Treaty text and to Section C of Annex NI have therefore been applied provisionally by Ukraine since 3 September 2025, to the extent consistent with its constitution and laws, while the amendments to Sections A and B of Annex NI entered into force on that date. This is provisional application, not ratification of the amendments.

As Ukraine remains a party, the 20-year sunset clause in Article 47(3) ECT is not engaged. The ECT has been invoked against Ukraine. In JKX Oil & Gas, an emergency arbitrator under the SCC Rules rendered an award on 14 January 2015, and the PCA-administered tribunal issued its final award on 6 February 2017; in Littop Enterprises, an SCC tribunal dismissed claims exceeding US$6 billion for lack of jurisdiction by an award of 4 February 2021. The Treaty has nevertheless not been central to Ukrainian investment disputes, and the Crimea claims against Russia, which never ratified the ECT, were brought under the 1998 Ukraine-Russia BIT.

The question may become live with EU accession. The EU and Euratom withdrew from the ECT with effect from 28 June 2025, as did several member states, and as a member state Ukraine would be bound by Komstroy (Court of Justice of the EU, 2 September 2021), under which the ECT arbitration clause does not apply intra-EU. Claims by investors from contracting parties outside the EU, such as Japan, Switzerland or Türkiye, would be unaffected. No official position has been published.

As Ukraine is not an EU member state, the intra-EU doctrine of Achmea (6 March 2018) and Komstroy is not part of Ukrainian law, and no Ukrainian court has been asked to enforce an intra-EU award. Accession negotiations, opened on 25 June 2024, advanced in June 2026, July 2026 and 13 October 2026 with the opening of further clusters. On accession, Ukraine’s BITs with member states would fall to be terminated in line with the 2020 Termination Agreement, but no plan or timetable has been announced.

The more significant development points the other way: Law No. 4856-IX opened international commercial arbitration, and in particular the ICAC, to investor-State disputes where consent is given in a treaty, legislation or a contract (see Question 4). The new jurisdiction has not yet been tested.

Ukrainian courts’ main involvement in investment arbitration remains the Crimea awards against the Russian Federation: the Supreme Court upheld recognition of the Everest Estate award, rejecting Russia’s immunity and jurisdictional objections (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 25 January 2019 in case No. 796/165/18), and the Kyiv Court of Appeal recognised and granted leave to enforce the Oschadbank award of 26 November 2018 by a ruling of 17 July 2019 (case No. 824/66/19). Appeals by two non-parties failed: the Supreme Court returned one on the ground that Article 479(7) CPC, as a special rule, confines appeals against recognition rulings to the parties to the arbitration (ruling of 10 November 2020), and closed the proceedings on the other, restoring the effect of the recognition ruling which it had suspended (ruling of 2 December 2020, with a separate opinion of the judge-rapporteur, who considered that Article 479(7) does not bar appeals by non-parties whose rights are affected). The other Crimea awards (Naftogaz, PrivatBank, Stabil, DTEK Krymenergo and others) are being enforced mainly abroad. The Dutch Supreme Court (Hoge Raad) dismissed Russia’s challenges to the PrivatBank, Naftogaz and Belbek awards on jurisdiction on 6 December 2024 (ECLI:NL:HR:2024:1807, 1810 and 1813) and remanded the Everest case, the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the Oschadbank award on remand on 1 July 2025, and further decisions are pending in the Netherlands, France and the United States, but not, to the authors’ knowledge, in Ukraine.

The ICAC moved online in response first to the pandemic and then to the war. The tribunal may hold hearings in person, online or in a combined form (Article 43(1) ICAC Rules), an arbitrator or a party may take part by videoconference (Article 47(2)–(3)), and a hearing held by videoconference is deemed held at the seat (Article 39(4)). Electronic communication has been strengthened without abandoning paper. Documents must be filed electronically and, in addition, in at least three paper copies (Article 11(1)), and a communication sent to a party’s designated e-mail address is deemed received on the day of sending (Article 11(5)). Electronic copies of electronic evidence must be certified by an electronic signature (Article 52(3)); the Rules do not require it to be qualified, which avoids tying the requirement to any single national regime. The MAC Rules contain parallel provisions, remote hearings have been standard since March 2022, and a claim under several contracts with compatible arbitration clauses attracts a single registration fee (Article 17(2) ICAC Rules and Section III(9) of the Schedule of Arbitration Fees and Costs). The ICAC manages documents through Microsoft 365 but has no dedicated electronic case-management platform. Awards are still signed on paper. Under Article 60(4) and (9) ICAC Rules, the tribunal signs original copies, one for each party and one for the file, and the Secretary General of the ICAC adds a signature and the ICAC seal to confirm that it is an ICAC award rendered and signed by a tribunal constituted under the Rules. The authors know of no challenge to an award on the ground that the hearing was held remotely.

The state courts have also digitised. Documents are exchanged through the “Electronic Court” subsystem (Article 14 CPC), advocates and Ukrainian legal entities have been required to use electronic cabinets since 18 October 2023 (Law No. 3200-IX of 29 June 2023), and participants may join hearings by videoconference from their own devices, although witnesses and experts may do so only from court premises (Article 212 CPC).

ESG issues have not, to the authors’ knowledge, been addressed by Ukrainian courts in arbitration-related cases, and the ICAC has no ESG-specific rules; developments are mainly legislative and international.

Law No. 3991-IX “On the Basic Principles of State Climate Policy”, in force since 30 October 2024, sets a framework for climate neutrality, adaptation and emissions monitoring, although its climate-finance provisions take effect only one year after martial law ends. Draft law No. 15538, submitted on 21 August 2026, would introduce sustainability reporting modelled on the CSRD (Directive (EU) 2022/2464), applying first to the largest companies for 2028.

The Register of Damage for Ukraine, established under the auspices of the Council of Europe in May 2023, had by 30 September 2026 opened all 43 categories of claims, including damage to the environment. The Convention establishing an International Claims Commission for Ukraine, opened for signature on 16 December 2025 and ratified by Ukraine on 30 April 2026, is not yet in force (it requires 25 ratifications and sufficient funding). The Commission will decide claims against the Russian Federation in a mass claims process rather than by arbitration, but is likely to shape the methodology for valuing war-related, including environmental, losses later invoked in commercial and investment arbitrations. Domestically, the Supreme Court has held since 2022 that the Russian Federation enjoys no jurisdictional immunity in claims by individuals for damage caused by its armed aggression (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 14 April 2022 in case No. 308/9708/19).

Ukraine applies its own regime under the Law “On Sanctions”: sanctions are imposed by decisions of the National Security and Defence Council enacted by presidential decree, since 2022 include forfeiture of assets to the State by the High Anti-Corruption Court (Article 4(1)(1-1)), and since 2025 have been systematically synchronised with EU and other G7 packages. EU Regulation 833/2014, including its “no claims” rule (Article 11), is not part of Ukrainian law and could at most be taken into account under Article 14(2) PIL Law, which no reported decision has done. Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 187 of 3 March 2022 imposes a moratorium on obligations to persons connected with the aggressor state, NBU Resolution No. 18 of 24 February 2022 restricts cross-border payments, and since 2024 the ICAC’s Compliance Policy has required parties to disclose sanctions and ownership information, without barring access to arbitration.

The Supreme Court’s case law has become progressively stricter. In 2020 the Court held that sanctions against the creditor’s owners do not of themselves offend public policy (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 19 March 2020 in case No. 824/146/19), while refusing recognition of a Russian award in favour of a sanctioned Russian buyer of military goods against a strategic defence enterprise, on the ground that time-limited sanctions against the creditor evidence a threat to national security; it found the refusal a proportionate interference with the creditor’s property under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, since the sanctions were limited to three years and neither extinguished the debtor’s obligation nor prevented it from performing the award in Ukraine once they were lifted (judgment of 13 February 2020 in case No. 824/100/19; see also Article 81(2) PIL Law). After February 2022 it applied the same reasoning to a sanctioned Russian creditor outside the defence sector, observing that the refusal does not terminate the civil-law relationship between the parties (judgment of 22 December 2022 in case No. 824/138/21, concerning an award of the ICAC at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation). Most recently, on appeals brought by a prosecutor on behalf of the State (see Question 33), it has refused recognition of awards used to circumvent sanctions. Both cases concerned awards made by the same sole arbitrator under the UNCITRAL Rules against the same Ukrainian debtor. In the first, an award made in Kyiv in May 2023 in favour of a Cypriot creditor was followed days later by sanctions against that creditor, after which the arbitrator, by an additional award, substituted a UK-registered assignee as claimant; recognition sought by the assignee was refused because it would circumvent the sanctions against the original creditor (judgment of 18 December 2024 in case No. 824/107/23). The Court treated as decisive that the substitution took place after the sanctions were imposed and did not address the fact that the assignment itself had been concluded before them. In the second, the debtor, a company controlled by sanctioned Russian nationals, had in April 2023 assumed a suretyship in favour of a Lithuanian creditor, and the award was made in ad hoc proceedings seated in London (judgment of 15 January 2026 in case No. 824/157/23). In the latter case the Court held the suretyship void under Resolution No. 187 and observed that this pointed to the nullity of the arbitration clause it contained; as the debtor had not invoked that ground, the Court refused recognition on the ground of public policy, which it must protect of its own motion (Article 478(1)(2)(b) CPC).

By contrast, the martial-law moratorium on enforcement against defence-industry enterprises in paragraph 10-2 of the Final and Transitional Provisions of the Law “On Enforcement Proceedings” No. 1404-VIII of 2 June 2016 is treated as an enforcement-stage obstacle, not as a ground for refusing recognition, so that ICAC awards against state defence-sector debtors have been recognised although they cannot be enforced until martial law ends (judgment of 23 January 2025 in case No. 824/63/24). In that case the Court also checked, although the award had been made by the ICAC in Kyiv, that it did not recover a debt for an entity of the aggressor state and that no Russian legal entity would ultimately benefit from enforcement (Article 81(2) PIL Law; Article 78(2) of the Law “On Enforcement Proceedings”). The Supreme Court has held that NBU Resolution No. 18 does not make the recognition of an ICAC award contrary to public policy, since cross-border transfers remain possible under an individual NBU permission (Civil Cassation Court, judgment of 26 July 2023 in case No. 824/123/22); the Resolution’s effect is thus felt at the payment stage. Paragraph 14 of the Resolution prohibits cross-border transfers except in listed cases, which include payments connected with ICAC and MAC proceedings (subparagraph 29) and the payment of fees and advances on costs in international commercial and investment arbitrations and foreign courts (subparagraph 34), but there is no general exception for paying a foreign arbitral award, so that a Ukrainian debtor’s payment abroad must fit within another exception, such as the one for state-owned gas market companies subject to Cabinet approval (subparagraph 56), or be made under an individual NBU permission granted on the basis of a Cabinet of Ministers order (subparagraph 6).

Ukraine has no AI legislation and no rules specific to AI in arbitration. Apart from the provision on the responsible use of digital technologies, including AI, in the ICAC Rules of Conduct, the ICA Law and the ICAC Rules are silent, and the parties and the tribunal may regulate AI use within their procedural autonomy, subject to confidentiality and to the arbitrators’ personal duty to decide.

The Ministry of Digital Transformation has adopted a phased, bottom-up approach to AI regulation. Its October 2023 roadmap and White Paper, published on 26 June 2024, envisage an initial reliance on voluntary codes of conduct, guidance and a regulatory sandbox, followed by legislation aligned with the EU AI Act. Legislative preparation was already under way in 2026: a working group under the parliamentary Committee on Digital Transformation began work on 12 June, and on 8 September Parliament reported that the first two sections (15 articles) of a draft comprehensive AI law had been prepared. No bill had been registered at the time of writing.

The most concrete rules concern the judiciary. Article 16 of the Code of Judicial Ethics of 18 September 2024 allows judges to use AI only where this does not compromise their independence and impartiality and does not concern the assessment of evidence or decision-making. The High Anti-Corruption Court approved Principles for the Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools (Order No. 56 of 19 December 2024). They allow judges and staff to use AI only as an auxiliary tool for organisational tasks such as data analysis, prohibit uploading the court’s official documents to AI tools and do not extend to the administration of justice, where any use of AI must respect judicial independence and not affect the objectivity of the proceedings. The Regulation on the Use of Artificial Intelligence Technologies by Employees of the Supreme Court Office (Order of the Head of the Supreme Court Office No. 117 of 8 December 2025) treats AI as an exclusively auxiliary tool that cannot replace professional judgment. It requires disclosure whenever AI is used to create a document or part of it, other than for purely technical tasks, and prohibits its use for the automatic drafting of decisions and other procedural documents, for predicting the decisions of individual judges and for processing deliberation secrets or case materials containing personal data. In July 2025 the Ministry of Justice, together with national and international partners including the Ministry of Digital Transformation, issued non-binding recommendations for lawyers on the safe use of AI; the bar has no binding rules.

The Commercial Cassation Court has left without consideration a request to clarify its final judgment, which could not be clarified in any event, finding an abuse of procedural rights in the applicant’s conduct taken as a whole, including its appeal to the “position” of ChatGPT, which the Court said is not recognised as a source of reliable, scientifically proven information (Supreme Court, Commercial Cassation Court, ruling of 8 February 2024 in case No. 925/200/22); in a separate opinion, Judge Vronska agreed with the outcome but considered that reliance on AI-generated material is not in itself an abuse. The same court later held that chatbot answers on contract interpretation are not evidence (judgment of 8 July 2025 in case No. 925/496/24, para 5.4, upholding the appellate court’s refusal to examine as electronic evidence the answers of ChatGPT and Grok on the meaning of a contract term). By the same logic, an award in which AI displaced the arbitrators’ own judgment could be challenged for procedural non-compliance or on public policy grounds, though there is no case law on the point.

There is no specific framework for arbitrating digital asset or blockchain disputes, and the ICAC has no special rules for them. The substantive regulation is itself incomplete: the Law “On Virtual Assets” No. 2074-IX of 17 February 2022 has not entered into force, its entry into force being tied to Tax Code amendments, and draft law No. 10225-d, adopted at first reading on 3 September 2025, has not yet passed second reading. Since 2023 the Civil Code has recognised “digital things”, including virtual assets, as objects of civil rights (Article 179-1).

Such disputes are in principle arbitrable and may be referred to international arbitration where Article 1(2) ICA Law, which now accepts an express agreement that the subject matter is connected with more than one state, is satisfied. An agreement recorded electronically, including one accepted through an online interface, meets Article 7 ICA Law read with Article 207(1) of the Civil Code and the Law “On Electronic Commerce” No. 675-VIII of 3 September 2015, so a clause in platform or token terms is not invalid merely because it is electronic; the obstacles are rather proof of consent, identification of the parties and consumer protection.

There is no Ukrainian decision on arbitration agreements in smart contracts or digital asset terms. A court would probably require proof that each party knowingly agreed to arbitration in recorded form, and code alone, without accessible natural-language terms, may not suffice. An award ordering the transfer of virtual assets may also be difficult to enforce until the 2022 Law and its tax framework take effect, since enforcement officers have no settled mechanism for seizing such assets.