In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a region that has undergone profound economic and legal transformation over the past three decades, sophisticated corporate governance frameworks have increasingly been adopted. These changes have been accompanied by the widespread use of international arbitration as a means to resolve disputes. This book is the first to examine issues arising in corporate (and especially shareholder) disputes across eleven CEE jurisdictions – Lithuania, Slovakia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Estonia.

Authors with extensive experience and expertise in each jurisdiction offer in-depth and practical analyses of such key matters as the following:

• the gradual use and adoption in CEE jurisdictions of concepts derived from the common law (such as piercing the corporate veil);

  
  



• the effects of arbitration agreements included in companies’ internal incorporation documents;

  
  



• the extension of arbitration agreements to non-signatories;

  
  



• the interpretation, in a CEE context, of the duties of care and loyalty of company officers;

  
  



• the protection of minority shareholders;

  
  



• identifying the categories of shareholder/corporate disputes that are arbitrable; and

  
  



• the use of arbitration in strategic privatisations.

  
  

Detailed attention to real-life examples and case law illustrate the ways in which arbitral tribunals and domestic courts determine these matters, reflecting CEE countries’ particular jurisdictional approaches to complex issues of consent and effects on third parties that frequently arise in corporate dispute contexts.

As the region’s economies continue to develop and integrate with global markets, the demand for well-grounded dispute resolution mechanisms will only increase. This book serves not only as a practice tool to understand the current state of corporate arbitration in the CEE but also as a foundation for future developments in this critical area of commercial dispute resolution. It should prove valuable to practitioners, academics, and policymakers working to enhance the effectiveness and accessibility of arbitration for corporate disputes throughout the region.