Australian Capital Territory Current Acts

COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION ACT 2017 - NOTES

(see s 1E)

Note 1     The Legislation Act

contains definitions and other provisions relevant to this Act.

Note 2     For example, the Legislation Act

, dict, pt 1, defines the following terms:

              •     exercise

              •     function

              •     oath

              •     person

              •     Supreme Court

              •     the Territory.

Note 3     The Model Law does not include definitions of the following terms:

              •     arbitration agreement

              •     confidential information

              •     disclose

              •     domestic commercial arbitration

              •     exercise

              •     function

              •     interim measure

              •     Model Law

              •     party

              •     the court.

"arbitral tribunal" means a sole arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators.

"arbitration" means any domestic commercial arbitration whether or not administered by a permanent arbitral institution.

"arbitration agreement"—see section 7 (1).

"confidential information", in relation to arbitral proceedings, means information that relates to the arbitral proceedings or to an award made in those proceedings and includes the following:

        (a)     the statement of claim, statement of defence and all other pleadings, submissions, statements or other information supplied to the arbitral tribunal by a party;

        (b)     any information supplied by a party to another party in compliance with a direction of the arbitral tribunal;

        (c)     any evidence (whether documentary or otherwise) supplied to the arbitral tribunal;

        (d)     any notes made by the arbitral tribunal of oral evidence or submissions given before the arbitral tribunal;

        (e)     any transcript of oral evidence or submissions given before the arbitral tribunal;

        (f)     any rulings of the arbitral tribunal;

        (g)     any award of the arbitral tribunal.

"disclose", in relation to confidential information, includes publishing or communicating or otherwise supplying the confidential information.

"domestic", in relation to an arbitration—see section 1 (3).

"interim measure"—see section 17.

"Model Law" means the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (as adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on 21 June 1985, and as amended by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on 7 July 2006).

"party" means a party to an arbitration agreement and includes—

        (a)     any person claiming through or under a party to the arbitration agreement; and

        (b)     in any case where an arbitration does not involve all of the parties to the arbitration agreement, those parties to the arbitration agreement who are parties to the arbitration.

"the court" means, subject to section 6 (2), the Supreme Court.

Endnotes

1     About the endnotes

Amending and modifying laws are annotated in the legislation history and the amendment history. Current modifications are not included in the republished law but are set out in the endnotes.

Not all editorial amendments made under the Legislation Act 2001

, part 11.3 are annotated in the amendment history. Full details of any amendments can be obtained from the Parliamentary Counsel's Office.

Uncommenced amending laws are not included in the republished law. The details of these laws are underlined in the legislation history. Uncommenced expiries are underlined in the legislation history and amendment history.

If all the provisions of the law have been renumbered, a table of renumbered provisions gives details of previous and current numbering.

The endnotes also include a table of earlier republications.

2     Abbreviation key

A = Act	NI = Notifiable instrument
AF = Approved form	o = order
am = amended	om = omitted/repealed
amdt = amendment	ord = ordinance
AR = Assembly resolution	orig = original
ch = chapter	par = paragraph/subparagraph
CN = Commencement notice	pres = present
def = definition	prev = previous
DI = Disallowable instrument	(prev...) = previously
dict = dictionary	pt = part
disallowed = disallowed by the Legislative	r = rule/subrule
Assembly	reloc = relocated
div = division	renum = renumbered
exp = expires/expired	R[X] = Republication No
Gaz = gazette	RI = reissue
hdg = heading	s = section/subsection
IA = Interpretation Act 1967	sch = schedule
ins = inserted/added	sdiv = subdivision
LA = Legislation Act 2001	SL = Subordinate law
LR = legislation register	sub = substituted
LRA = Legislation (Republication) Act 1996	underlining = whole or part not commenced
mod = modified/modification	or to be expired

3     Legislation history

Commercial Arbitration Act 2017 A2017-7

notified LR 4 April 2017

s 1A, s 1B commenced 4 April 2017 (LA s 75 (1))

remainder commenced 1 July 2017 (s 1B and CN2017-1

)

as amended by

Red Tape Reduction Legislation Amendment Act 2018

A2018-33 sch 1 pt 1.4

notified LR 25 September 2018

s 1, s 2 commenced 25 September 2018 (LA s 75 (1))

sch 1 pt 1.4 commenced 23 October 2018 (s 2 (4))

4     Amendment history

Commencement
s 1B     om LA s 89 (4)

Definition and form of arbitration agreement
s 7     am A2018-33

amdt 1.9

Repeal and consequential amendments
pt 10 hdg     om LA s 89 (3)

Legislation repealed
s 42     om LA s 89 (3)

Legislation amended—sch 1
s 43     om LA s 89 (3)

Transitional
pt 20 hdg     exp 1 July 2019 (s 203)

Definitions—pt 20
s 200     exp 1 July 2019 (s 203)

Arbitration under repealed Act
s 201     exp 1 July 2019 (s 203)

Transitional regulations
s 202     exp 1 July 2019 (s 203)

Expiry—pt 20
s 203     exp 1 July 2019 (s 203)

Consequential amendments
sch 1     om LA s 89 (3)

5     Earlier republications

Some earlier republications were not numbered. The number in column 1 refers to the publication order.

Since 12 September 2001 every authorised republication has been published in electronic pdf format on the ACT legislation register. A selection of authorised republications have also been published in printed format. These republications are marked with an asterisk (*) in column 1. Electronic and printed versions of an authorised republication are identical.

Republication No and date	Effective	Last amendment made by	Republication for
R1 1 July 2017	1 July 2017– 22 Oct 2018	not amended	new Act
R2 23 Oct 2018	23 Oct 2018– 30 June 2019	A2018-33

amendments by A2018-33

6     Expired transitional or validating provisions

This Act may be affected by transitional or validating provisions that have expired. The expiry does not affect any continuing operation of the provisions (see Legislation Act 2001, s 88 (1)).

Expired provisions are removed from the republished law when the expiry takes effect and are listed in the amendment history using the abbreviation ‘exp' followed by the date of the expiry.

To find the expired provisions see the version of this Act before the expiry took effect. The ACT legislation register has point-in-time versions of this Act.

© Australian Capital Territory 2019

Australian Capital Territory

A2017-7

Republication No 3

Effective: 2 July 2019

Republication date: 2 July 2019

Last amendment made by A2018-33

This is a republication of the Commercial Arbitration Act 2017

(including any amendment made under the Legislation Act 2001

, part 11.3 (Editorial changes)) as in force on 2 July 2019

. It also includes any commencement, amendment, repeal or expiry affecting this republished law to 2 July 2019

.

The legislation history and amendment history of the republished law are set out in endnotes 3 and 4.

Kinds of republications

The Parliamentary Counsel's Office prepares 2 kinds of republications of ACT laws (see the ACT legislation register at www.legislation.act.gov.au

):

              • authorised republications to which the Legislation Act 2001

applies

              • unauthorised republications.

The status of this republication appears on the bottom of each page.

Editorial changes

The Legislation Act 2001

, part 11.3 authorises the Parliamentary Counsel to make editorial amendments and other changes of a formal nature when preparing a law for republication. Editorial changes do not change the effect of the law, but have effect as if they had been made by an Act commencing on the republication date (see Legislation Act 2001

, s 115 and s 117). The changes are made if the Parliamentary Counsel considers they are desirable to bring the law into line, or more closely into line, with current legislative drafting practice.

This republication does not include amendments made under part 11.3 (see endnote 1).

Uncommenced provisions and amendments

If a provision of the republished law has not commenced, the symbol  U  appears immediately before the provision heading. Any uncommenced amendments that affect this republished law are accessible on the ACT legislation register (www.legislation.act.gov.au

). For more information, see the home page for this law on the register.

Modifications

If a provision of the republished law is affected by a current modification, the symbol  M  appears immediately before the provision heading. The text of the modifying provision appears in the endnotes. For the legal status of modifications, see the Legislation Act 2001

, section 95.

Penalties

At the republication date, the value of a penalty unit for an offence against this law is $160 for an individual and $810 for a corporation (see Legislation Act 2001

, s 133).

Australian Capital Territory

Commercial Arbitration Act 2017

Endnotes65

Australian Capital Territory

Commercial Arbitration Act 2017

An Act for the conduct of commercial arbitration, and for other purposes

Note Sections of this Act that contain a reference to the ‘Model Law' beneath the heading are substantially the same as the provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (as adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on 21 June 1985 with amendments as adopted by that Commission in 2006) so as to be as uniform as possible with the UNCITRAL Model Law.

Some changes have been made to those provisions of the Act based on the UNCITRAL Model Law to amend or supplement the provisions in their application to domestic arbitrations in the ACT or to accommodate modern drafting styles and conventions (for example, provisions drafted in gender neutral terms and archaisms are replaced with modern alternatives).

Notes draw attention to substantive changes.

The original numbering of the ‘articles' of the UNCITRAL Model Law has been retained but converted to references to ‘sections', and articles containing more than 1 have been re-formatted into subsections.

There are a number of additional provisions to those based on the UNCITRAL Model Law.

The Model Law contains provisions that are not needed in this Act—the article number and heading to the article appearing in the Model Law are included in this Act despite the omission of the body of the section.