From Exclusion to Integration: The Sorbonne Report on EU Law and International Commercial Arbitration

This article engages with the Sorbonne Report, Towards an EU Law on International Commercial Arbitration?, a collective project launched in 2024 at the Sorbonne Law School under the supervision of Professors Mathias Audit and Sylvain Bollée. The Report examines the fragmented relationship between arbitration and the EU legal order, where the formal exclusion of arbitration from the Brussels I Regulation (Recast) contrasts with the constant entanglement of arbitral proceedings and European judicial cooperation. Rejecting the option of a stand-alone EU arbitration regulation, the Working Group advances targeted reforms through amendments to Brussels I Recast. Central among these is a ‘European passport’ enabling judgments of the courts of the seat of arbitration – validation, annulment, enforcement and assistance – to circulate freely under Chapter III, without extending circulation to awards themselves. Complementary reforms clarify the arbitration exclusion, allocate exclusive jurisdiction to the courts of the seat, establish a priority rule to prevent parallel litigation, confirm access to provisional measures, and protect arbitral awards against conflicting judgments. By drafting concrete legislative provisions rather than general recommendations, the Report suggests that a coherent EU interface with international commercial arbitration is possible. Its proposals aim to strengthen legal certainty, improve the attractiveness of EU seats, and show how incremental reform could reconcile arbitral autonomy with European judicial cooperation.