Law No. 2024-537 of June 13, 2024: Legislative recognition of the International Commercial Chamber at the Paris Court of Appeal (CCIP-CA)
Jacques Bouyssou, Marie-Hélène & Luana Nilsen
Law No. 2024-537 of June 13, 2024, aimed at increasing corporate financing and enhancing France’s attractiveness, was published in the French Official Journal on June 14, 2024. Its objective is to strengthen the attractiveness of Paris as a financial center and improve the economic, legal, and tax conditions for companies operating in France, with a particular focus on their international competitiveness.
Among the measures introduced by this new law, Article 25 inserts a new Article L. 311-16-1 into the French Code of Judicial Organization, which establishes the special jurisdiction of the Paris Court of Appeal (Section 5 of Chapter I of Title I of Book III), as follows:
Article L. 311-16-1: The Paris Court of Appeal, which includes an international commercial chamber, has jurisdiction over:
1. Applications to set aside international arbitration awards, under the conditions and circumstances provided for by the French Code of Civil Procedure;
2. Appeals against decisions ruling on a request for the recognition or the enforcement (exequatur) of an international arbitration award, under the conditions and circumstances provided for by said Code.
This provision, which grants the Paris Court of Appeal exclusive jurisdiction to hear applications against international arbitration awards, their recognition, or enforcement, will likely draw the attention of arbitration practitioners. Its impact on Article 1519 of the French Code of Civil Procedure, which currently provides that applications to set aside international arbitration awards must be brought before the court of appeal of the jurisdiction where the award was rendered, will need to be considered by the regulatory authorities.
However, this is not the point on which we wish to focus the reader’s attention. The aforementioned article institutionalizes, for the first time, the existence of the International Commercial Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal (CCIP-CA).
Until now, the CCIP-CA has been set up within the Paris Court of Appeal under constant law, akin to the International Chamber of the Paris Commercial Court (CCIP-TC), without any dedicated legislative or regulatory text. Their specificities were defined by the Procedural Protocols signed on February 7, 2018, by the presidents of the concerned courts and the Paris Bar.
The absence of a legislative or regulatory framework endorsing these chambers has been highlighted as a hindrance to their visibility and development, as neither held the status of an autonomous court. When the Protocols refer to the “jurisdiction” of these chambers, they actually mean the allocation of cases through simple judicial administration measures within the Paris Commercial Court or the Paris Court of Appeal, which are the actual courts having jurisdiction (see the preface by the First President of the French Court of Cassation, Chantal Arens, and the contributions of the President of the CCIP-CA François Ancel and Maître Alban Caillemer du Ferrage at the colloquium of June 14, 2019, dedicated to international commercial chambers, whose proceedings are published in RLDA 2019/152, suppl., nos. 6819 and 6920).
Since then, it has been observed that the knowledge of the CCIP-CA among international trade actors remains limited, as the CCIP-CA has not yet, to our knowledge, been seized by application of a jurisdiction clause expressly designating it. Its cases are mainly assigned through the mechanisms of international jurisdiction rules, on the one hand, and rules of assignment of cases within the relevant courts, on the other hand, the latter resulting from a judicial administration decision beyond the parties’ control.
The legislative enshrinement of the International Commercial Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal – pending similar recognition of its counterpart within the Paris Commercial Court – marks a decisive step towards the institutionalization and perpetuation of international commercial chambers, enhancing their visibility on the international scene in business litigation. There is no doubt that it will significantly contribute to strengthening legal security and the effectiveness of jurisdiction clauses designating these international chambers in international commercial contracts.