Abstract

Is there a crisis of commercial arbitration in Poland or – using the language of communist propaganda – it does experience merely “temporary difficulties”? Is it at all warranted to use the concept of “crisis” with respect to commercial arbitration cases, or rather one should note a social phenomenon which should be diagnosed, its causes established and – considering it to be a negative occurrence – specific remedies should be adopted?

This article is not a report based on earlier empirical research. It rather provides a handful of casual observations which point to a certain social phenomenon and seek the causes of its occurrence. Those who are almost professionally, directly or indirectly, involved in commercial arbitration (arbitrators, legal representatives, entrepreneurs negotiating business contracts, scholars involved in arbitration law studies, judges involved in post-arbitration stages or considering exclusions of arbitrators) should undoubtedly consider this phenomenon. All the more so it refers to those who are convinced that commercial arbitration is a legitimate form of resolving business disputes. In the case of those persons it is not only about the study of the above-mentioned causes, which is undoubtedly important and substantial, but first of all it becomes purposeful for find means which can hold the progress of this, in the opinion of the arbitration community unfavourable phenomenon.