Abstract

The New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards celebrates the 60th anniversary of its entry into force in Hungary in 2022. After being hibernated for nearly three decades, the Convention has become an essential source of Hungarian lex arbitri since the political-economic transition of the country from socialism to market economy in 1989-1990. Given that the Convention celebrates its ‘diamond anniversary’ in Hungary this year, the time is ripe to review its application by domestic courts over the last decades, by focusing on the recognition and enforcement of international arbitration agreements and foreign arbitral awards in Hungarian judicial practice. This study aims at verifying whether the approach of Hungarian state courts is in line with, or at least converging towards the dominant pro-arbitration bias of the Convention. On the other hand, it is worth identifying those domains, where national judicial practice departs from the mainstream tendencies, and to shed light on those fields, where the risk of divergence from the arbitration-friendly orientation arises.