Arbitrability of Procurement Disputes

Abstract

This article discusses the arbitrability of disputes, which in the domestic doctrine referred as procurement disputes. These are disputes from a number of laws related to public procurement and ordering. The article provides a brief analysis of the possibility of referring such disputes to arbitration courts. An obstacle to the consideration of these disputes by arbitration courts is judicial practice, which does not accept the use of the private-law mechanism for resolving disputes in such a publicly significant sphere as procurement for public needs. In addition, the author makes the assumption that the concept of the “public element”, which prevails in domestic judicial practice, makes it difficult to enforce the decisions of the arbitration courts on such disputes, since they inevitably have “public elements”, for example, the presence of budgetary funds in the legal relationship special contracting procedures. This concept is in contradiction with the fact that the state contract is a civil contract and, generally, is arbitrable, like other types of procurement. The further possibility of applying arbitration proceedings in procurement disputes is extremely controversial and leaves a wide field for future research.