Following the publication by the European Commission of its draft legislative proposal for reform of the Brussels Regulation in December 2010, the rapporteur of the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs, Tadeusz Zwiefka, has published his draft report on the text.

The Commission proposes to retain the arbitration exception, but to clarify it with a rule requiring a court seised of a dispute to stay proceedings if its jurisdiction is contested on the basis of an arbitration agreement and an arbitral tribunal has been seised of the case, or court proceedings relating to the arbitration agreement have been commenced in the member state of the seat of the arbitration (see Legal update, Brussels Regulation reforms: European Commission proposes to retain arbitration exception).

In his draft report, the rapporteur maintains the position taken in his report on the Commission's Green Paper (see Legal update, European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs rejects proposed deletion of arbitration exclusion in Brussels Regulation), namely that arbitration should remain excluded from the Regulation, as arbitration is satisfactorily dealt with by the New York Convention and the Geneva Convention.

The rapporteur states that the draft represents his "first thoughts", which will be refined in light of a workshop to be held in September 2011. As previously reported (see Article, Looking ahead to the second half of 2011: arbitration), the rapporteur's report is scheduled for adoption by the Committee on 11 October 2011. It will then be considered by the European Parliament at its plenary session on 12 December 2011.

Source: European Parliament.