Arbitration Clauses and Disputes from the Central European Perspective: Blurring the Public-Private Divide

The article begins by discussing arbitration clauses in public-private contracts entered into by public entities with private foreign investors. The authors plunged into the Czech Republic’s archives to dig out privatization contracts and look into dispute resolution mechanisms. The need for foreign investment, however, is not limited to the privatization process in the 1990s. The authors thus also explore current practices used when signing memoranda of understanding and investment contracts with foreign investors in three Central European countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland). The authors then discuss public-private arbitration disputes. The focus is on both commercial arbitration arising out of public-private contracts and investment arbitration. Legitimate state concerns for the public interest are present in both types of proceedings; therefore, referring to the public-private divide does not make much sense from a public interest perspective.