## Facts

- N.Z. and I. agreed to arbitrate disputes before the Arbitration Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Socialist Republic of Romania, with Romania as the seat.
- A dispute was arbitrated in Romania, and the tribunal issued an award in favor of I.
- I sought recognition and enforcement of the award in Switzerland.
- A Swiss first-instance court granted leave to enforce the award.
- N.Z. appealed, asserting (i) the enforcement decision improperly relied only on oral hearings under Swiss procedure and (ii) enforcement was barred because N.Z. allegedly lacked proper notice and time to prepare, citing that the initial invitation was in Romanian and an intelligible notice arrived only days before the hearing.
- Switzerland and Romania were both parties to the New York Convention, and the enforcement request was analyzed within that framework.

## Issues

1. Whether the first-instance enforcement proceedings violated Swiss procedural law by being decided based solely on oral hearings, warranting reversal of enforcement.
2. Whether enforcement had to be refused under New York Convention Article V(1)(b) because N.Z. allegedly lacked proper notice or was otherwise unable to present his case due to language/translation and timing of the arbitral invitation.

## Decision

- The Swiss Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and affirmed the order granting enforcement.
- The court rejected the objection that oral-only enforcement proceedings invalidated the enforcement decision.
- The court rejected the Article V(1)(b) defense and allowed enforcement to proceed.

## Legal Principles

- Recognition and enforcement under the New York Convention may be refused only on the limited grounds stated in Article V, and the resisting party bears the burden of proof.
- Article V(1)(b) requires a showing of deficient notice or denial of an opportunity to be heard that materially impairs the party’s ability to present its case; language or translation complaints are insufficient without a demonstrated deprivation of that opportunity.
- Domestic procedural objections to the form of exequatur proceedings do not justify non-enforcement absent a defect significant enough to undermine basic procedural fairness in the enforcement process.

## Conclusion

The Swiss Court of Appeal affirmed enforcement of the Romanian arbitral award, holding that neither the streamlined oral nature of the Swiss enforcement proceedings nor the asserted notice/translation problems in the arbitration met the New York Convention’s narrow standard for refusing recognition under Article V(1)(b).


N.Z. (No Nationality) v. I. (Romania), 17 Y.B. Com. Arb. 581 (Switz. Ct. App. 1992)