The Working Group prepared the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation (2002), the amendments to the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (1985) adopted in 2006, the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules (as revised in 2010), the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules (with new Article 1(4) as adopted in 2013), the UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty-Based Investor-State Arbitration (effective date 1 April 2014), the Convention on Transparency in Treaty-Based Investor-State Arbitration, also referred to as the “Mauritius Convention on Transparency” (New York, 2014) and the UNCITRAL Notes on Organizing Arbitral Proceedings (2016). Since 2015 the Working Group has considered the topic of enforceability of international commercial settlement agreements resulting from conciliation.
Professor Lebedev participated as a representative of the Russian Federation actively in the work of this Working Group as well as in the deliberations that took place when the products of the Working Group were before the Commission. His interventions were always constructive and balanced. He also had the ability to listen to and to take into account arguments presented by others. His contribution to the achievements of the Working Group was considerable, in particular when the Model Law and the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules were revised.
3. Professor Lebedev as Сo-arbitrator
From 2004 to 2007 I had the honour and the pleasure to chair an arbitral tribunal where Professor Lebedev was one of the two party-appointed arbitrators. The case became public, since the Claimant brought an action for setting aside the final award before the Svea Court of Appeal.
The case concerned a contract for the purchase and resale of uranium from nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union. The claimant Globe Nuclear Services and Supply (GNSS) had purchased such uranium from AO Techsnabexport (Tenex) for resale. Tenex was responsible for all of Russia’s exports of uranium products and uranium services and was wholly-owned by the Russian state. GNSS was formed as a joint venture between Tenex and a Swiss company, to support Tenex with marketing and distribution. The ownership of GNSS had since then changed and it was now privately held.
The tribunal found by majority that the circumstances in which the contract between GNSS and Tenex was made were such, that it would having knowledge of these circumstances be inequitable to enforce that contract. Since GNSS was aware of these circumstances when the contract was concluded, the tribunal held that that GNSS was not entitled to rely on that contract and that GNSS’s claim for damages because of breach of contract was not made out. On this ground the tribunal dismissed all GNSS’s claims.