The beginning of this year has brought a new success to the construction arbitration team of Zamfirescu Racoți Vasile & Partners Attorneys at Law (ZRVP) in a dispute derived from the performance of a works contract in road infrastructure initiated by the Contractor, an international construction company.

At a first stage, an arbitral award was obtained, this being ruled by a tribunal formed under the rules of the Court of International Arbitration attached to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC Paris), which established our Client’s right to over 20 million Euros plus delay penalties representing damages for the additional executed works and the prolongation of the performance term of the Agreement for reasons non-imputable to the Contractor.

The Beneficiary brought an action for the annulment of said award and, in the context of initiation by our Client of the enforcement procedure, a settlement agreement was concluded to condition the closing of the dispute and the recovery of the entire amount by the Contractor on the favorable resolution of the claim for annulment.

At the beginning of this year, the appeal field by the Beneficiary against a first relief of rejection of the claim for annulment by the Bucharest Court of Appeal was, in turn, rejected. At this date all the amounts obtained following the arbitration have been fully recovered.

The team of attorneys at law, coordinated by Alina Tugearu, partner, was formed of Andra Constantinescu, managing associate, and Ion Enache, senior associate.

“The solution we have obtained settles several matters of law of interest in this area: the Bucharest Court of Appeal characterized the limits of the notion of public order, considered to be a “yielding notion, always adjustable to the current and future social needs” and “that does not confine itself only to the express imperative provisions”, yet acknowledging that it is incumbent on any judge that “the legal texts being silent” this may confer the character of public order on a legal provision, “when it considers that its observance is absolutely necessary to protect the general interests of the society”, w