Legal Nature of Clauses Determining Arbitration Centers Resolving Disputes under the UDRP

Recent legislative amendments regarding an arbitration agreement incorporated into the agreement of accession have contributed to the formation of the concept in the Russian doctrine giving additional argumentation in favor of qualifying clauses envisaging the consideration of domain disputes under the UDRP as arbitration agreements. Taking into account a number of procedural and legal consequences determined by both the fact of the conclusion of the arbitration agreement and the fact of the award, the author raises the question of the nature of clauses providing for the consideration of disputes under the UDRP procedure. The study of the main properties and characteristics of the clauses under consideration leads to the conclusion that the balance between public law and private law foundations defined in the doctrine inherent to the arbitral agreement, does not meet the nature of the dispute resolution clauses under the UDRP (the impossibility for the domain name holder to refuse from the clause; the absence of the derogatory effect of the clause, etc.). Accordingly, enforceability of this clause cannot be determined under the provisions of the Federal Law on Arbitrazh [Arbitration] of 2015 and the Law of the Russian Federation on International Commercial Arbitration of 1993, providing the conclusion of the arbitration agreement, which, for example, include the principle of effective interpretation of an arbitration agreement that does not exclude in a number of cases the competence of the arbitral tribunal in the absence of the agreement signed by the parties. In this regard, the author questions the argumentation in favor of unenforceability of the clause under consideration based on the named laws.
The study of certain principles of dispute resolution proceedings under the UDRP (limited list of remedies; resolution of the dispute in the form of oral hearings only on the initiative of an administrative commission; the unduly short period of time provided for both response to the claim and going to a competent court; the disparity of the dispute resolution clause, etc.) allows the author to conclude that, in some cases, such a clause is burdensome for the owner of the domain name due to the violation of the principles of legality and independence in the establishment and formation of a specific administrative commission.

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