Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA)

The Association of Bulgarian Employers' Organizations (AOBE) and the Minister of Justice Georgi Georgiev discussed the possibility of creating a register of arbitration courts, accelerating the administration of justice and reducing the administrative burden for business.
A special working group under the Ministry of Justice, in which experts from nationally representative employer organizations will participate, will aim to analyze the experience of other European Union member states in establishing and registering arbitration courts, in order to increase trust in this out-of-court method of resolving commercial disputes.
According to the representatives of the employers' organizations, promoting alternative methods of resolving commercial disputes through arbitration and mediation will reduce the workload of the courts.
"In the Ministry of Justice, we rely heavily on dialogue with business. I can assure you that when we make changes to the regulatory framework, they will be taken into account by the addressees. Among the priorities and efforts of the Zhelyazkov cabinet, in particular those that are in our portfolio, are undertaking a number of measures to reduce the administrative burden, e-justice and speed up processes, as well as reforms in the field of administrative justice, which we have already sent to Brussels, due to the commitments under the NLA. Among the main tasks facing the ministry are the creation of a register of arbitration courts and reforms to remove Bulgaria from the so-called "Grey List" for money laundering," said Minister Georgi Georgiev.
All those present united around the thesis that the powers of the Supreme Court of Cassation under a provision of the International Commercial Arbitration Act (ICAA), which provided an additional opportunity to annul arbitration awards, should be returned. We
are talking about the possibility of annulling an arbitration award on the grounds that it "contradicts the public order of the Republic of Bulgaria", which until 2017 was regulated in Art. 47, item 3 of the Commercial Arbitration Act. Currently, parties that have voluntarily chosen to settle their disputes before commercial arbitration have lost one of the main advantages of this procedure, namely the speed, due to which it is preferred by business and especially by foreign investors.
The meeting also discussed the cost-orientation of court fees, which are often unaffordable for business and pose a serious "brake" for justice, the acceleration of the work of the Commercial Register and the optimization of commercial registration procedures, the introduction of a single entry point for the Annual Financial Statement, the separation of EU regulations concerning the Tax and Social Security Procedure Code into a separate law, as well as strengthening the role of the Council on legislation. The business side also raised the issue of creating an Administrative Criminal Procedure Code in order to avoid the dual subsidiary application of the Criminal Procedure Code and the Administrative Procedure Code in these proceedings, which sometimes leads to problems in law enforcement.