Ongoing Dispute Between CIETAC And Its Sub-Commissions

An internal dispute between the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission ("CIETAC"), China's leading arbitration institution, and its sub-commissions, CIETAC Shanghai Commission ("CIETAC-SH") and CIETAC South China Commission ("CIETAC-SC"), has escalated recently since it initially came to the public attention earlier in 2012.

On August 1, 2012, CIETAC released an announcement on its offi cial website ("Announcement"), declaring immediately effective, that CIETAC's authorization for CIETAC-SH and CIETAC-SC to accept and administer arbitration cases was suspended. Additionally, where parties have agreed to arbitrate their disputes by reference to CIETAC-SH or CIETAC-SC, the parties should instead submit their applications for arbitration to CIETAC. The CIETAC Secretariat would accept such arbitration applications and administer these cases. In response to this, CIETAC-SH and CIETAC-SC issued a joint statement on August 4, 2012, asserting that both