The 2017 Law of Mongolia on Arbitration (“Arbitration Law”) is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law with a few deviations.  

The Arbitration law applies to both international and domestic arbitrations and the regime for recognition and enforcement of awards is contained in Chapters 7 and 8 of the Arbitration Law.  

While the Arbitration Law sets out the grounds for refusal of recognition or enforcement of arbitral awards, irrespective of the country in which it was made, Chapter 14 of the Law of Mongolia on Civil Procedure (2002) (“Civil Procedure Law”) is also relevant as it governs the procedural aspects regarding the conduct of court proceedings.  

Mongolia ratified the 1958 New York Convention on 24 October 1994. When acceding to the Convention, Mongolia made two standard declarations: first, that it will apply the Convention on the basis of reciprocity and, second, that it will apply the Convention only to “differences arising out of legal relationships, whether contractual or not, which are considered as commercial under the national law of Mongolia” (https://www.acerislaw.com/international-arbitration-in-mongolia/). 

According to Article 6.2 of the Arbitration Law, the Civil Court of Appeals of the place where the arbitration proceedings take place has jurisdiction over the recognition and enforcement of domestic awards, while foreign awards fall under the jurisdiction of  the Capital City Court of Civil Appeals (“Нийслэлийн Иргэний Хэргийн Давж Заалдах Шатны Шүүх) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.  

According to Article 48 of the Arbitration Law, an arbitration award, irrespective of the country in which it was made, will be enforced upon application in writing to the Civil Court of Appeals.  

The award-creditor shall attach the original award or a duly certified copy thereof.  If the award is not made in a Mongolian language, the court is entitled to request the party to supply a translation thereof into a Mongolian language.  

The requirements in the Arbitration Law remain the same both for foreign and domestic awards, so this applies to both domestic and foreign awards 

There are no special requirements. 

All court fees are determined by the Law of Mongolia on Stamp Duties (“Stamp Duties Law”). Under Article 8.1 of the Stamp Duties Law, “0.1 percent of the amount of the claim shall be collected for annulling, verifying, and enforcing arbitration awards”, and the Stamp Duties Law is silent on capping the fee to the value of the claim.  

Consequently, if the amount of the claim is for instance EUR 1,000,000.00, the court fee would be (0.1 percent =) EUR 10,000.00.

In Mongolia, the “cost follow the event” approach applies to the practice of court proceedings. According to Article 56.1 of the Civil Procedure Law, the costs of enforcement proceedings shall be reimbursed from the award-debtor if the application for recognition and enforcement was granted, or from the award-creditor if it was dismissed.  

The proceedings are mostly adversarial, but recognition and enforcement proceedings have some ex parte features. For instance, courts may consider ex parte requests with respect to interim measures relating to provisional seizure or preventing disposition of certain property. 

The party relying on the award or applying for its enforcement must attach the original award or a duly certified copy. According to the Arbitration Law, attaching the arbitration agreement is not required and this applies to both domestic and foreign awards.  

However, in practice, courts prefer to obtain a letter from the arbitral institution confirming that the “arbitration proceeding has been conducted and the award is rendered by the tribunal”. It is common for the parties to attach this to the request. 

The Arbitration law states that, if the award is not made in the Mongolian language, the court has the right to request the party to provide a duly certified official translation thereof into the Mongolian language. Other than that, the wording of the Arbitration law does not specify that the award must be translated at the time of an application for enforcement.

The Arbitration Law or other related laws do not require the parties to be represented by a lawyer, as obtaining legal representation is not an obligation.

However, if the parties want to be represented by an attorney, in addition to having been admitted to the Mongolian Bar Association, he or she must be a lawyer who passed the advocate’s exam and is registered in the Association of Mongolian Advocates.

As for foreign lawyers, until recently, it was not clear whether they could represent clients in court or in arbitration in Mongolia. But, according to the Order of the Minister of Justice, lawyers and law firms who have been admitted to the bar in their jurisdictions have the right to represent their clients in organizations other than courts (https://legalinfo.mn/mn/detail?lawId=9597). Therefore,  this can be interpreted as permission for foreign lawyers to represent parties in arbitration in Mongolia but not before Mongolia courts. However, there is no publicly available case yet suggesting this was done.

Service of judicial and extrajudicial documents may either be effected by an usher or by regular postal mail.

Unlike the UNCITRAL Model Law, which applies to international commercial arbitration, the Arbitration Law applies to both international and domestic arbitration in Mongolia. Although substantive requirements for both types of arbitration remain the same, the Arbitration Law sets out slightly different procedural requirements for international and domestic arbitration. For example, the time limit for filing complaints and the jurisdiction of the courts to deal with enforcement requests differ between domestic and foreign awards (see Articles 6.2, 13.8, 15.3, 47.3 of Arbitration Law for more information).  

The Arbitration Law is silent on differentiating awards based on their final/interim nature. ​​​​In practice, relevant courts do recognize and enforce both partial and interim awards. 

The grounds for refusing recognition and enforcement of both domestic and foreign awards provided in the Arbitration Law are the same as those set out in Article V of the New York Convention.

As mentioned before, substantive requirements of the Arbitration Law for both international and domestic arbitration are the same, so the grounds that are set out in the New York Convention apply equally to domestic awards as well.

​​In commentaries, public policy is defined as “interests that concern all citizens, have a representative character, are useful and beneficial to the country or nation, and have a direct or indirect influence on its preservation, protection, stability, and development.”​  

However, there is no statutory definition of “public policy” in Mongolian legislation, and therefore judicial interpretation is at the discretion of the judges. This leads to widely varying interpretations of the standard and an absence of uniform jurisprudence.  

There is no specific provision to negate the immediate enforceability of the decision recognizing the award. 

The decision of the court recognizing or refusing an arbitral award is final and there is no available remedy specified in relevant legislation. However, there is no publicly available case where parties sought a remedy against the court’s decision recognizing an arbitral award. Therefore, it is difficult to say in advance whether the parties will be able to “appeal” the court’s decision recognizing an arbitral award, and it will likely be decided on a case-by-case basis depending on the content of the dispute. 

As mentioned before, the court will only issue an enforcement decision unless it finds that any of the grounds for refusal applies, and it does not permit a party to appeal an arbitral award. In other words, the decision of the court recognizing or refusing an arbitral award is final and there is no available remedy specified in relevant legislation. Nonetheless, given the dearth of prior case law on this, it is difficult to answer this question with absolute certainty.

The legislators have not expressly addressed set off claims in the chapter related to arbitration proceedings. Therefore, it is difficult to give a clear answer to this question. Any possible set-off claim would likely be assessed by the court on a case-by-case basis. 

There is no publicly available case where a Mongolian court has recognized or enforced a foreign arbitral award that was fully or partly set aside at the seat of the arbitration.  

Although the Arbitration Law does not address this specifically, the New York Convention does. It is thus possible, on the basis of the language of the chapeau of Article 5(1)(e) of the New York Convention (“may”), that the award may be refused enforcement, but the court may nevertheless use its discretion to enforce it. 

Yes. Article 69 of the Civil Procedure Law provides the judge with the power to take the following measures to secure implementation of Court decisions:  

• to impose freeze injunctions on an asset or money belonging to the award-debtor; 

• to prohibit the award-debtor from taking certain actions related to its property; 
• to impose freeze injunctions on expenditures and transactions on the award-debtor’s bank account; 
• to require the award-debtor to place the sum demanded by the award-creditor into an enforcement deposit account.  

According to the Article 49.2 of the Arbitration Law, a security for costs may be requested by either party if an application for annulment or suspension of an award has been made to a court, which is deciding the recognition or enforcement of an arbitral award. 

The Arbitration Law does not specify the exact grounds, and the judge will decide at his own discretion depending on the circumstances of the case.