Foreign Trade Arbitration Commission

(FTAC), a permanent public organization under the Ail-Union Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Moscow. It was created in 1932 (decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Sovnarkom [Council of Peoples’ Commissars] of the USSR of June 17, 1932, in the Collection of Laws of the USSR, 1932, no. 48, art. 281) for the settlement in an arbitration hearing of disputes arising in foreign trade agree-ments—in particular, disputes between foreign companies and Soviet economic organizations. The FTAC consists of 15 members, appointed for one year by the Presidium of the All-Union Chamber of Commerce and Industry from representatives of commercial, industrial, transport, and other organizations and also from people who possess special knowledge in the field of foreign trade.

The FTAC accepts for investigation only those disputes for which it has the written permission of the parties for the transmission of the dispute to the commission. When the dispute is submitted to the FTAC, each party designates an arbiter from among the members of the commission; they in turn pick a chief arbiter. (If after 15 days the arbiters have not reached agreement on the choice of chief arbiter, he is ap-pointed by the chairman of the FTAC from among the members of the commission.) The parties have the right to challenge an arbiter or chief arbiter under those circumstances specified in Soviet law for the challenge of judges. If the examination is undertaken by a collegium of two arbiters and a chief arbiter, the decision is reached by a majority vote. The decisions of the FTAC are final and are not subject to appeal. The case is handled according to the rules confirmed by the Presidium of the All-Union Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Jan. 21, 1949 (with amendments and supplements of Mar. 25, 1959, and Aug. 12, 1967). The parties involved are responsible for the cost of handling the case, for which a tax is levied in the sum of not more than 1 percent of the disputed amount. The execution of the decisions of the FTAC is based first of all on the principle of voluntariness. A decision not executed in the allotted time may be carried out with compulsory measures. The FTAC is charged with the task of strengthening economic ties between Soviet foreign-trade organizations and foreign firms. Its popularity, which is due to the highly qualified staff of arbiters and the careful substantiation of its decisions, is constantly growing. Thus, from 1959 to 1969, 904 cases were considered by the FTAC (of which 200 were considered in 1969); not only disputes between Soviet foreign trade organizations and foreign firms were submitted to the FTAC, but also disputes between foreign firms (by their de-sire).