NECOMPETENȚA GENERALĂ A INSTANȚELOR JUDECĂTOREȘTI ÎN PREZENȚA CONVENȚIEI ARBITRALE

In the presence of an arbitration agreement, the parties remove the general competence of the common law court for any possible disputes that may arise between them. In this article, the author starts from a case settled in the judicial practice. In the present case, although the arbitration agreement was inserted in the contract of the parties, the applicant nevertheless referred the matter to the court of law. In this situation, before the Cluj-Napoca Court of first instance, the defendant wrongly invoked the plea of territorial lack of competence. The court referred with the matter perpetuated the error and admitted the plea, although it should have qualified it as being the plea of general lack of competence of the court of law.
The Cluj-Napoca Court of first instance declined the settlement of the case to Oradea Court of first instance, which took the correct measure and declined the settlement of the
case to the Arbitration Court attached to the Timiș Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture.
In our opinion, since the parties have established by their will the competence of the arbitral court for any possible disputes between them, they should respect this aspect and should not refer the matter to the courts of law.