Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards in Ukraine: Mind the Gaps!

A first glance at Ukrainian legislation concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards will make you believe that Ukraine is a quite arbitration friendly jurisdiction. Although Ukraine is a party to the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention) providing for an obligation to recognize and enforce foreign arbitral awards, the New York Convention does not set any exhaustive procedure for recognition and enforcement and expressly refers to the "rules of procedure of the territory where the award is relied upon"¹. Therefore, in order to understand how foreign arbitral awards may be enforced in Ukraine, one needs to first look to the Ukrainian procedural legislation.