The question whether an arbitration clause is transferred
to the assignee in cases of assignment of receivables,
has remained a major problem even after the text of
the UNCITRAL Convention on the Assignment of Receivables
in International Trade (hereinafter: Receivables Convention)
was finalized in 2001. Aims of the treaty are “to
promote the movement of goods and services across national
borders by facilitating increased access to lower-cost
credit”…to ”remove legal obstacles
to certain international financing practices, (…)
to “enhance security and predictability with respect
to the law applicable to key issues”, and to “harmonize
domestic assignment laws by providing a regime governing
priority between competing claims for States to opt-into”.
The Convention needs five accessions for entry into
force, however, only Luxembourg has signed it so far
(status of 30 August 2003).
 Hence,
in this case, two major issues are concerned: arbitration
and international assignment of receivables. The first
one, arbitration, has an important role amongst means
of dispute resolution. This results from its numerous
advantages, e.g. more effective consideration of professional
points of view, cheaper and speedier procedure compared
to that of the state courts , neutrality and guaranteed
enforceability with the assistance of the New York Convention
on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral
Awards (hereinafter: the New York Convention) . Moreover,
in the era of modern developed economy enormous amounts
of money are involved in business transactions, which
implies several supplementary issues and legal institutions
including payment, banking activities etc. The Receivables
Convention was also necessary because of the fact that
the assignment of receivables has recently become even
more widespread than it used to be. In search for quick
and effective means of dispute resolution, assignment
cases are more frequently dealt with by arbitrators.
This is where the question of the article rises –
whether an arbitration clause can be transferred from
an assignor to an assignee when the receivables included
in a certain contract are assigned to the latter.
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