Commercial court system in Uzbekistan

In Uzbekistan all courts of general jurisdiction are integrated into the Supreme Court system, and commercial courts are a separate part of this system. Commercial courts are called “economic courts” in Uzbekistan.

Procedural conduct of commercial courts is mainly prescribed in the Code of Economic Procedure and the resolutions of the Plenum of the Supreme and Supreme Economic Court. Pursuant to article 22 of the Law on Courts, the Plenum of the Supreme Court is responsible for unanimous court practice, and provides explanations on certain issues in the application of legislative acts by sector. These explanations are binding for courts, state bodies and other persons, enterprises, institutions, organizations and officials applying the legislation to which that explanations are provided for.

I. Hierarchy

Commercial court system is three-tier, as follow:

•  First instance courts (interdistrict economic courts)

• Regional economic courts (appellate and cassation)

• The Supreme Court

Although the system is restricted to three-tier structure, this number is doubled in the process of reviewing cases after adoption of ZRU-888 on December 25, 2023. More precisely, this law introduced three more instances in reviewing the judgments of first instance courts: revision instances in regional level and the Supreme Court, and Presidium in the Supreme Court. A case is considered in revision instance of the Supreme Court and Presidium only if there is a ground for annulment or amendment of judgment of lower instance courts.  

Time limits for filing claims to all instances and Presidium are described below:

Instance	Time Limit	Additional Condition/Time Limit
First Instance	within general or special limitation period
Appellate	within one month since issuance of decision/order of first instance court
Cassation	within 6 months since a judgment of first instance court takes effect	if the case is not reviewed in appellate instance
Revision in Regional Court Level	within one year since a judgment/order of first instance court takes effect	if one-year time limit ispassed till the adoption of cassation decision, within 3 months starting from the day adopted that decision
Revision in the Supreme Court	within one year since a judgment/order of first instance court takes effect	if one-year time limit ispassed till adoption of regional revision, within three months starting from the day adopted that decision
Presidium	within 3 months since delivery of petition to Chief Justice of Supreme Court or Prosecutor General, but not later than six months since adoption of the decision of revision in the Supreme Court

II. Competence

Under article 25 of the Code of Economic Procedure, commercial courts have competence over the following types of disputes:

• cases on the disputes in economic sphere arising from civil, administrative and other legal relations between legal persons, and corporate disputes between citizens;

• cases on establishment of facts;

• bankruptcy;

• cases related to domestic and international arbitration proceedings;

• corporate except labor disputes;

• investment;

• competition;

• cases on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards and judgments of foreign courts.

III. Jurisdiction

All above stated disputes are considered by first instance courts except cases where (i) at least one party is foreign person; (ii) cases related to international arbitration proceedings; and (iii) cases on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. These cases are considered by Karakalpakstan, regional and Tashkent city courts.

Also, at the request of a major investor in investment cases and based on the agreement of parties in competition cases, disputes are decided by the Supreme Court while other investment cases are heard by Karakalpakstan, regional and Tashkent city courts as a first instance under a party’s wish.

In certain circumstances the Supreme Court has the right to withdraw any case from any court and accept it for its review as first instance or transfer the case from one court to another.         

If you need any advice and assistance or have question regarding commercial litigation, our lawyers would be happy to provide comprehensive assistance in any matter. Contact us via info@fairlex.uz