Analysis and critique of Article 34, Section 3 of International Commercial Arbitration Law regarding the Setting aside of Immovable Property arbitral awards on the grounds of Conflict with the Provisions of a Notarial Act

Article 34 of the Iranian LICA mentions several reasons for setting aside the arbitration award in three paragraphs. The last cause, to a large extent similar to the fifth paragraph of Article 489 of the Civil Procedure law, refers to the "Conflict of the Arbitration Award related to Immovable Property with the Provisions of the Notarial Documents". A cause due to its lack of clarification in the UNCITRAL Model Regulations and the 1958 New York Convention raises the question of what is the meaning of the "Notarial Document" contained in this paragraph and what are the justifications for including or removing this exception in the provisions of the Iranian LICA.This analytical descriptive article has reached the following conclusions using the library research method, First of all, the intention of the legislator in this provision is the specific concept of the notarial document - in the sense of a document prepared by the notary; Because the subject of the law is commercial arbitration, and commercial operations as defined in articles one to three of the Commercial Code, usually refers to transactions. Therefore, if the third paragraph of Article 34 has a concept about commercial operation, that concept appears only by manifesting the meaning of the notarial document in the "document prepared by the notary." Also, part of the third paragraph of Article 34 holds, "unless the "arbitrator" has been authorized to act as "amiable compositeur" regarding the latter issue." implicitly implies that a legal relationship has been concluded between the parties within the framework of the notarial document in question, which, in the form of its terms, the arbitrator has been given the right to compromise.Secondly, Regarding the concept of setting aside the immovable property arbitral award based on Conflict with the provisions of the notarial act, three main points of view have been raised in the opinion of arbitration law experts, based on which they have considered the requirement mentioned above as a redundant provision:The Non-incorporation of subject matter point of view believes that the transfer of immovable property is outside the scope of the LICA due to the non-commercial nature of the immovable transaction. The main challenge of the present view is the neglect of the wide scope of commercial operations of Article 2 of the LICA, derived from the footnote of Article 1 of the UNCITRAL model regulation, and conflicts with Article 2 of the Commercial Code.Although it may be said, since joining the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, Iran, like many countries, has used the right of reservation of paragraph one of Article 3 of the Convention regarding the governance of internal regulations in the definition of commercial operations, the Commercial Code definition of commercial operations is acceptable; However, in rejecting this argument, the possibility of difference between the concept of commerciality in the New York Convention and commerciality in the LICA has been mentioned. Even beyond that, it has been said that if Iran has accepted the New York Convention subject to the definition of commercial operations according to its internal regulations, this does not mean applying articles two and three of the Commercial Code. It also makes sense to refer to the general criteria of the LICA.The view of Conflict with public order believes that from the perspective of domestic law, immovable property is a part of the territory of countries, and the sensitivity of the legislator regarding immovable property and the possession of foreigners has historical roots, which places it in the category of domestic public order. According to some jurists, this sensitivity in the field of land registration system has become much more intense, especially after the events in Palestine.From an international point of view, the Lex rei sitae is one of the oldest rules in private international law, according to which the legal regime governing immovable property is assumed to be the law of the country where the property is located. In this regard, land registration rules are considered a manifestation of public order based on the Lex rei sitae.In this regard, although according to the acceptance of the land registration system in most countries, it may appear that the acceptance of this theory is not compatible with the concept of relativity in public order. But considering that relativity can be different based on the concept and scope of public order in different countries (spatial Conflict) or different periods (temporal Conflict), although from a spatial perspective, the issue of notarial documents has an almost universal consensus; From the temporal point of view, the relativity discussed can be attributed to the issue of notarial documents.The third point of view regarding the non-arbitrability of claims related to real rights believes that arbitration is only specific to the rights of obligations and cannot refer to real rights, which have to be registered in the land registry. In criticizing this point of view, it should be mentioned that according to the rule in Iranian private law, except in cases where the law prohibits arbitrability, all claims are arbitrable, and immovable property is not excluded from this principle. In this regard, the pre-sale contract is one of the contracts that, according to Article 3 of the building pre-sale law, is made through the preparation of a notarial document by the notary and its notice is sent to the local registry office and included in the title document. However, paragraph 10 of Article 2 of the law provides the mandatory arbitration mechanism. Article 20 of this law states that all disputes related to the pre-sale contract have been subject to arbitration.Therefore, paragraph 3 of article 34 of the LICA is part of the second paragraph of the same article. On this basis, it is suggested that it be removed according to the logical justification based on the doctrine of Conflict with public order. With this action and regarding the above-mentioned interpretation, Iranian regulations consider international standards, and respect for notarial documents is maintained in terms of public order.