Arbitration

International arbitration is governed by the International Arbitration Act 2008, which enacts the UNCITRAL Model Law in its 2006 version. Court intervention is confined to the points the statute provides for, it is entrusted to Designated Judges of the Supreme Court, and the ultimate appeal remains to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Domestic arbitration, by contrast, continues to be governed by the provisions of the Code de procedure civile.

Conflating the two is the classic Mauritian error. It is not academic. Characterising a clause wrongly means applying the wrong procedural law, going to the wrong supporting court, and losing or inventing rights of recourse. That characterisation is settled when the clause is drafted, not when the dispute arrives.

Institutionally, the arbitration activity of the MCCI is carried on by MARC, The Mediation and Arbitration Center (Mauritius) Ltd, a separately incorporated entity since 2020. The MARC Arbitration Rules came into force on 21 May 2018.

Enforcement is the real test of an award. Mauritius gives effect to the New York Convention through the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards Act 2001. An award made elsewhere can therefore be recognised and enforced here, and an award made here travels abroad. That portability is the entire point of the arbitration clause, and the reason it is drafted at the outset rather than defended at the end.

At the outset, precisely. The seat, the governing law of the contract, the language of the proceedings, the number of arbitrators, the institutional rules, and how interim relief before the state court fits alongside them: these choices are made while the parties are still in agreement. Drafted in haste, a pathological clause produces its effects years later, when it can no longer be corrected. The practice advises on the clause itself, and then, where matters proceed, in the conduct of the arbitration as counsel to a party.