Arbitrability of the internal disputes of commercial companies and its obstacles

Arbitration is one of the methods of resolving disputes supported by legislators; however, in some cases it is subject to certain conditions in order to protect the exclusive jurisdiction of national courts in certain matters. Undoubtedly, the most important clause is arbitrability, which is known as the cornerstone of arbitration; ignoring it may affect the arbitration process at any stage. One of the disputes arising from the issue of arbitration is the internal disputes of commercial companies. The complexity of the relationship between the elements of the company and the existence of multiple stakeholders, in some cases, is such that the arbitrability of the disputes arises with ambiguity. However, despite the importance of arbitration of internal disputes of commercial companies, in the Iranian legal system, its legal status is not very clear; however, in many countries, there are specific rules in this area. Therefore, the present article comparatively examines the arbitrability of companies’ internal disputes and its findings show that, unlike some countries where the jurisprudence has identified the arbitrability of companies’ internal disputes and explained its obstacles, in the Iranian legal system, the legislator only requires referrals to arbitration for co-operatives and does not have explicit rules for other companies.