The MChJ‘s position

Clause 11.2 of the Agreement stipulates that disputes shall be administered by the international arbitration court established under the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Lithuania, and the extract from the Register of legal entities of the Republic of Lithuania submitted to the court by the foreign enterprise indicates that the VCCA [Vilnius Court of Commercial Arbitration] is the legal successor of the arbitration court at the Association International Chamber of Commerce. The international arbitration court established under the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Lithuania and the arbitration court at the Association International Chamber of Commerce are different organizations.

The e-mail address <…@mail.ru> may have previously belonged to the MChJ, but this e-mail address has not been used for many years, and the current e-mail address of the the MChJ is <…@umail.uz>.

The Supreme Court‘s position

The arguments presented in the MChJ’s cassation appeal cannot be accepted for the following reasons.

The MChJ argued that VCCA considered and resolved the dispute without having jurisdiction [vakolati bo‘lmagan holda]. However, in his letter Rimas Varkulevičius, President of the Association of Lithuanian Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Crafts [ALCCIC], clairfied that there is only a single permanent arbitration court operating in the Republic of Lithuania – VCCA, which considers domestic and international commercial disputes, and that the ALCCIC is one of the founders of VCCA.

This e-mail address <…@mail.ru> belongs to the manager [rahbar] of the MChJ and through this e-mail the parties corresponded during January-June 2019 regarding the conclusion of the contract and the payment. Thus, correspondence between the parties according to the commercial usage was conducted through e-mail belonging to the head of the MChJ, and measures were taken to notify MChJ via this e-mail. Although the MChJ was informed that it could have access to the case documents [ish hujjatlari bilan tanishib chiqishi] through the information system of the arbitration court ARBIS (www.arbis.lt), it did not exercise this right.