‘Arbitration Law’ approved on first reading

The government-proposed bill to establish the “Arbitration Law” was yesterday approved at its first reading with a unanimous 29 votes in favor in the plenary session of the Legislative Assembly (AL).

Although the project was in general consensual, there were a few topics that raised questions from several lawmakers.

One of the questions that raised more debate concerned the qualifications and competencies of the arbiters; a topic initially raised by lawmaker Agnes Lam.

“What are the requirements to be an arbiter?” Lam asked, adding “who can perform such a task?”

On the topic, Secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan replied that such qualifications could be examined later when the proposal is analyzed in detail.

“We are taking one step [forward]; this will be the basis,” she said adding, “It is most important to attract arbiters of international reputation.”

The Secretary also advanced the government will study “if it will be feasible to unify all these [five existing] arbitration centers into just one.”

According to Chan, Macau has several advantages when compared to neighboring regions [in terms of arbitrations], especially to become the center for arbitration of conflicts between China and Portuguese-speaking countries,” although admitted that there is still a long road to walk until the city reaches such a point.

That’s mostly due to another of the issues raised by the lawmakers: The lack of bilingual staff.

On the topic, lawmaker Pereira Coutinho mentioned that to reach the standard pursued by the government, besides bilingual, “we need also trilingual,” noting that for international arbitration it would be also necessary to add the English language to the process.

Nevertheless, Pereira Coutinho said he agreed with the proposal for “correcting the [currently existent] dual system [of local and international arbitration] and meeting the current modern legal systems.”

Questioned on the possibility of hiring foreign experts, the director of the Legal Affairs Bureau, Liu Dexue, replied, “yes, it is possible. The law does not establish any limitation on nationality but, we must observe the rules of quotas for non-resident workers.”

Adding to the topic, lawmaker Ip Sio Kai proposed to eliminate the quota system for such professionals “in order to allow the hiring of foreigners so we can start the arbitration center and establish a baseline while we train more professionals.”