Oil contract disputes (Corona crisis as a model)

Abstract

This study aims to know the direct and indirect effects of force majeure on oil contracts and the resulting disputes that affected oil production, export and import, which led to a breach of the obligations and rights of the parties, and we based this study on a model of force majeure represented by the Corona pandemic, By presenting some texts of national legislation and the terms of oil contracts that referred to the concept and conditions of force majeure, to show then the effect of suspending the contract before the start of the negotiation stage between the parties due to force majeure for the purpose of avoiding the dissolution of the contract, which was referred to by national laws as a modern concept to avoid the effects of force majeure in order to continue the contract to achieve its objectives, The negotiation procedure is stipulated by many oil contracts and arbitration awards issued by international arbitration institutions, and then we will show the impact in the event that the parties fail to reach an agreement through negotiation by going to the means of arbitration, the means that may not be free of an oil contract as a means of resolving disputes, In addition, we will address the impact of the pandemic on arbitration and how it turned from adversarial arbitration to remote arbitration to transcend by its nature the spatial and temporal limits of dispute resolution, as well as it is distinguished from other means of dispute resolution that it is more suitable for resolving disputes because it is characterized by speed and flexibility of procedures that are not available in the ordinary judiciary, not even in traditional arbitration, Therefore, we will follow the descriptive approach and the analytical approach in order to describe the jurisprudential and legal controversy regarding force majeure and its impact on oil contracts, and we used in this analysis the oil contractual texts and special legal texts in Iraq and some Middle Eastern countries related to force majeure and its impact on the contract if applied, The comparative approach regarding the legal texts related to force majeure and the texts on the resolution of disputes through negotiation and the arbitration system in Iraq and some countries of the Middle East, for the purpose of setting clear foundations to avoid problems in resolving these disputes in the future and seeking to legislate competent laws and enter into agreements related to arbitration in light of these pandemics and organize contracts with wording proving the idea of negotiation and the means of arbitration as protection of the public interest from any similar crises in the future, In line with the development in the national legislation of developed countries and neighboring oil-producing countries, we will show in our study, so we divided this study into two sections under the first section The effects of the Corona crisis in oil contracts and the effects of the Corona crisis on the settlement of oil contract disputes in the second section.