Lawyer Monthly - August 2022

How Has Arbitration Emerged in Saudi Arabia? tribunal resigned, realising that the tribunal’s decision would not be in Britain’s favor, and thus the process of the arbitral stopped completely. Second: Arbitration with Aramco, whose name at the time of the case was (Standard Oil of California). The Kingdom granted a concession agreement in April 1954 to the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis to export the oil produced in the Kingdom abroad, and here a dispute arose about the exclusive right to transport Saudi oil and its derivatives and the extent to which this concession conflicted with the concession granted to Standard Oil of California regarding oil exploration on the eastern coast of the Kingdom, As a result, an international arbitral tribunal was formed to consider the dispute. The arbitral tribunal’s ruling was in favor of Standard Oil of California, and the Kingdom’s government accepted and implemented this ruling. Third: As a result of the repercussions of the famous Aramco case, the various means of settling disputes (other than the judiciary) went through a long stalemate that continued for several decades, starting with the issuance of Council of Ministers Resolution No. (58) dated 06/10/1963, which prevents government agencies from resorting to arbitration without the approval of the Council of Could you give us a short overview of the history of arbitration in Saudi Arabia? We can cover the history of arbitration in the Kingdom through several points. First: Arbitration over the dispute with Britain over the Buraimi Oasis In the late 1940s, a diplomatic and legal conflict took place between the Kingdom and Britain over the Buraimi oases. The ownership of the oases was claimed by Saudi Arabia, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the Sultanate of Muscat, which were under British protection, and the dispute intensified when the search for oil began in the Arabian Peninsula. In July 1954, delegates from Britain and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed an agreement in Nice to refer the dispute to an arbitral tribunal that began its work in Geneva in early 1955. In September 1955, the British representative in the arbitral Between the 20th and 21st centuries, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia saw considerable development in alternative dispute resolution as a means of avoiding litigation. Abdulaziz Aldomaiji, independent financial consultant and Fellow of the Charted Institute of Arbitrators, shares his insights on the emergence of arbitration in this article; what is the state of Saudi Arabian arbitration today, and how did it reach this state? There are many arbitration centres scattered around the world today, and they have procedures to enable reconciliation before taking any legal action. WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM | AUG 2022 MY LEGAL LIFE - ABDULAZIZ ALDOMAIJI 18

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