The Reform of the French Procedural Law on Arbitration: An Analytical Commentary on the Decree of May 14, 1980

On May 14, 1980, Articles 1005 and 1028 of the French Code of Civil Procedure were replaced with a decree instituting fifty new provisions regulating French arbitral practice. The decree responds to many of the criticisms of the former legislation, confers new status to arbitral awards and restructures the body of applicable law into a coherent and intelligent whole. This article begins with an outline of some of the policy considerations which led to the enactment of the decree and its substantive provisions. The article proceeds by analyzing the new provisions concerning French domestic arbitration, in the order in which they appear in the decree and comparing these provisions with their counterparts (or lack thereof) in the former legislation.