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Proceedings of the Symposium on Paris International Commercial Chambers

affiche_colloque_CCIP_1122The proceedings of the symposium held in June 2019 on the Paris international commercial chambers were published in a special issue of the Revue Lamy Droit des Affaires which can be freely download on the website of the Paris Court of Appeal.

The presentations were made in French, and the proceedings are written in the same language.

The Court has provided the following summary in English:

Opening of the Symposium

A little more than a year after the signature of the procedural protocols establishing the international commercial chambers in the Commercial Court and the Paris Court of Appeal, the symposium was opened to a large audience by Mrs Chantal Arens, First President of the Paris Court of Appeal, who, among other things, announced the forthcoming publication of a bilingual procedural guide before these chambers, with the aim of presenting the proceedings in a detailed and didactic manner, and called for the regulatory consolidation of the jurisdiction of the Paris Court of Appeal.

Mr Gille Cuniberti, Law Professor at the University of Luxembourg and moderator of the roundtables, pointed out that the creation of international commercial chambers forms part of an international competition between courts from which one of the issues at stake is the attractiveness of French law.

The creation of the Paris International Commercial Chambers

After a reminder of the origins of the commercial chambers by Mr Guy Canivet, Honorary First President of the Court of Cassation, and of the options chosen by the Ministry of Justice presented by Mr Thomas Andrieu, Director of Civil Affairs for the French Ministry, Ms Marie-Aimée Peyron, Chairman of the Paris Bar Association, went back on the support of the Paris bar in the creation of these chambers.

Students at the Sciences Po Law school of Paris (Mr Félix Briant, Ms Auriane Clement, Mr Mathieu Larroque, Ms Charlotte Muller) presented the fruit of their work done during one year with the International Commercial Chamber of the Court of Appeal by providing an overview of the choices made abroad in the creation of international commercial courts in Europe and in the world.

Roundtables

This symposium allowed to set out how to access to the international chambers in France, their jurisdiction and the applicable procedure, stressing in particular the desire to give greater importance to predictability in the conduct of the trial, the orality of the proceedings, the possible use of foreign languages and, in particular, the use of the English language.

Mr François Ancel, Ms Fabienne Schaller and Ms Laure Albert, all three judges in the International Commercial Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal intervened to develop these various points, as have the President of the International Commercial Chamber at the Paris Commercial Court, Mr Philippe Bernard, and Mr François Vaissette, Avocat Général representing the General Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Paris Court of Appeal , which was able to clarify the role of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in these chambers.

Mr Alban Caillemer du Ferrage and Ms Emilie Vasseur, members of the Paris Bar, stressed the important role of the creation of these chambers and the will of the bar to promote the stipulation of clauses conferring jurisdiction to the benefit of the Paris courts (in particular in the choice of ISDA to open its Master Agreement to the jurisdiction of French courts and French law) and inisted also on the judicial administration of evidence and the voluntary appearance of the parties and witnesses.

Finally, scientific insight was given by Ms Marie-Elodie Ancel, Law Professor at the University of Paris Est Créteil on the first decisions handed down by the International Chamber of the Court of Appeal and by Professor François Mailhé, Deputy-Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science of the Picardie Jules Verne University, who asked in particular how to meet the needs of economic stakeholders (use of the English language, set up of a procedural timetable; compulsory production of evidence; cross-examination).

Closing speech

During his executive summary, Mr Emmanuel Gaillard, Visiting Professor at the Yale Law School and at the Harvard Law School, called for pursuing the movement initiated by the creation of these chambers, in particular in favour of the use of the English language without translation and by implementing an adequate communication to raise awareness of these chambers, considering that France could usefully offer a high-quality public service of justice within a reasonable time and in accordance with international standards.

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