OVERVIEW OF THE CASE LAW IN BULGARIA REGARDING THE EXCLUSION OF CONSUMER DISPUTES FROM THE COMPETENCE OF ARBITRATION AND SERVICE OF THE ARBITRATION AWARD

Abstract

With the amendments to the Civil Procedure Code of 2017, a ban on reaching an arbitration agreement for resolving a dispute by an arbitral tribunal, one of the parties to which is a consumer within the meaning of § 13 of the Additional Provisions of the Law on consumer protection. A new paragraph 4 of Art. 3 of the same law, according to which any clause in a contract concluded between a trader and a consumer, by which the parties assign to an arbitration court settlement of a dispute between them, outside the procedure for alternative settlement of consumer disputes within the meaning of the law, is invalid. The Supreme Court of Cassation has formed a permanent practice, according to which the legislative changes are applicable to the pending proceedings under Art. 48 of the Law on International Commercial Arbitration for annulment of arbitration decisions, ruled on disputes with participation of a consumer, formed before the entry into force of the new law. The change raised the question of interpreting the concept of "consumer".  When defining disputes with a consumer party as non-arbitrators, the law refers to the definition of a consumer in § 13, item 1 of the Consumer Protection Act. This legal definition definitely refers only to a natural person who acquires goods or uses services that are not intended for commercial or professional activities. In practice, however, the question has arisen as to whether consumers are the "consumer of the energy service", the defendant in the claim for the receivables of the condominium for fees for the costs of management and maintenance of the common areas, the tenant - a natural person under a lease, the debtor, who has secured the debt of the company in which he is a manager or partner

In order to be enforced, an arbitral award must be duly served on the debtor for enforcement. When the defendant is hiding or has an unknown address, the requirement of Art. 32, para. 1 of the International Arbitration Act - the defendant to be thoroughly searched - when the seat, residence, usual residence or address can not be found after a thorough search or in a certified by the post office refusal to receive or not to receive the message. However, in order for the fiction to be applied, it is necessary to take action to serve the arbitral award on all known addresses of the defendant, specified in the contract and its annexes, the evidence in the case and the information in the Commercial Register. According to the practice, in order to comply with this requirement, a number of requirements must be met to ensure that the addressee has been sought - the minimum period of stay of the shipment at the post office, the number of visits to the address and messages and others.