Challenge to an arbitrator in the Czech Republic: fees and costs
A CFO overseeing an arbitration seated in Prague learns, four days before a scheduled hearing, that one of the three arbitrators failed to disclose a prior engagement with the counterparty's parent company. The tribunal is due to rule on the merits within weeks, and the window to raise the point narrows with every day the proceedings continue unchallenged.
A challenge to an arbitrator in a Czech-seated case is decided by the regional court that has jurisdiction over the seat, under Czech arbitration legislation. The party raising it must do so within a short statutory period after learning of the ground, before it takes further part in the proceedings; the file has to document both the ground and the date it was discovered. This is the practical shape of a challenge to an arbitrator under Czech fees and costs litigation practice.
This page sets out who files, the deadline that runs from discovery of the ground, the route through the regional court, and what a foreign party's file needs to hold together before the challenge is submitted.
What does a challenge to an arbitrator change before the award?
Filing the challenge does not, on its own, stop the tribunal's work. As a rule, the arbitrator under challenge continues to sit until the court decides, unless the tribunal itself orders otherwise. What changes is the record: from the moment the challenge is raised, everything that follows is measured against it.
This matters for a CFO because the ground for a challenge to an arbitrator seated in Prague can be lost simply by waiting. Continued, unreserved participation in the proceedings after the ground is known can be read as acceptance of the arbitrator's continued role. Once the award is issued, that acceptance cannot be undone: a ground that was available before the award and was not raised in time is generally treated as waived.
The practical consequence is that a party does not get to hold the ground in reserve as a way to challenge an unfavourable award later. Czech arbitration legislation treats the challenge as a procedural step that has its own moment, separate from any later challenge to the award itself.
When can a challenge to an arbitrator be filed under Czech law?
A challenge is available where there is a documented doubt about the arbitrator's independence or impartiality, or where the arbitrator lacks a qualification the parties agreed on. The ground can arise at appointment, mid-proceeding, or from a fact that surfaces only once the case is under way.
Two conditions decide whether the Czech regional court is the right forum at all. First, the arbitration agreement, or the jurisdiction clause within the wider contract, has to point to a seat inside the Czech Republic; a foreign seat routes the challenge to the courts of that seat instead. Second, the ground has to be one the party did not know, and could not with reasonable diligence have known, at the time the arbitrator was confirmed.
Where the proceedings involve a counterparty domiciled elsewhere in the European Union, questions of service and of any parallel cross-border service of documents can run alongside the challenge and affect how quickly the file can be completed.
The challenge concerns the tribunal's composition; it does not, by itself, reopen the merits of the dispute.
Waiting for the tribunal to address its own composition risks losing the ground once the award is issued. LISTINA prepares a factual report on the record of appointment, the disclosure history, and the timeline of discovery – delivered within 5–8 working days – so that a Czech advocate can file without first reconstructing the file. Representation before the court, where it becomes necessary, is provided by a collaborating advocate. Write to info@listinafirm.com.
Challenge to an arbitrator: Czech fees and costs litigation route and deadline
The route runs in two possible stages: first to the tribunal, which may itself decide the challenge under the applicable institutional rules, and then, if the tribunal rejects it or the parties agreed to skip that stage, to the regional court. The court's decision is not subject to a separate appeal in most institutional settings.
- Ground discovered during a hearing – written challenge filed with the tribunal, then the court if rejected – the challenging party – within the statutory short period from discovery
- Ground discovered before appointment is confirmed – objection raised at the appointment stage – the party confirming or naming the arbitrator – before confirmation is finalised
- Tribunal proceeds without ruling on the challenge – application for an interim measure to preserve the party's position – the challenging party, through counsel – in parallel with the challenge, no separate extension of the deadline
- Court decision pending – continued participation made expressly under protest – the challenging party – until the court rules
A challenge filed for tactical delay rather than a documented ground rarely improves the party's position; a court that finds the ground unsubstantiated leaves the tribunal's composition, and the schedule, unchanged.
A Polish counterparty's challenge to a presiding arbitrator was resolved by the regional court within roughly six weeks once the ground was documented at the first hearing where it surfaced, in spring 2025. The delay before filing, not the court's own pace, had been the larger risk in that file.
What must the file contain?
The file has to show three things together: what the ground is, when the party learned of it, and that the challenge was raised without unreasonable delay after that moment. Missing any one of the three weakens the filing regardless of how serious the ground itself looks.
- The arbitration agreement and the record of how each arbitrator was appointed or confirmed
- Any disclosure statement the arbitrator made, or should have made, at appointment
- Correspondence or minutes recording the moment the ground surfaced
- Proof of the date the challenging party actually learned of the ground
- Translations of any document not in Czech, where evidence abroad forms part of the file
- The institution's own rules on challenge, where the arbitration is institutional rather than ad hoc
For a foreign party, the item most often missing is the third: a dated record of discovery, as opposed to a general sense that the fact "came up at some point." A file without that date invites the other side to argue the challenge came too late.
A ground without a date of discovery reads, to the court, as a ground that may already have been known and accepted.
A file assembled after the deadline has already narrowed cannot be repaired by better argument alone. LISTINA reconstructs the disclosure and appointment record from the documents on file and produces the factual report the advocate then works from, typically within 5–8 working days. Representation before the court is handled by a collaborating advocate. Write to info@listinafirm.com.
Act, wait, or stop: what should a CFO decide now?
The decision point is narrow: act while the ground and its date of discovery can still be documented, wait only if the ground is not yet confirmed, and stop pursuing the challenge once continued participation has already run past the point where waiver becomes the more likely reading.
From documents and public sources alone we cannot establish how a given tribunal will treat the period between discovery and filing, nor predict how a regional court will weigh a disputed disclosure against a party's own conduct. What can be established, before the matter is put to a lawyer, is whether the disclosure was made, when, and what the arbitration agreement and the applicable institutional rules require of the parties at each stage.
Where the underlying dispute also touches a shareholder's own substantive rights rather than the conduct of the arbitration itself, that question sits outside this route.
The mechanics of the challenge belong to practice 01; the substantive rights of a shareholder affected by the outcome of the arbitration belong to practice 05, and the two are not decided on the same file.
A CFO weighing a cross-border position may also want the ownership chain on the other side documented before deciding whether the challenge is worth pursuing at all; a separate overview of beneficial ownership sources for Poland covers that ground for counterparties structured there.
Frequently asked questions
Where is challenge to an arbitrator filed?
With the regional court that has jurisdiction over the seat of the arbitration, after the ground has first been raised with the tribunal itself, as Czech arbitration legislation provides. The filing is not made with the arbitral institution alone; institutional rules on challenge run alongside the court's role rather than instead of it.
How long does the court take?
There is no promised timetable, and each regional court manages its own docket. As a rule the decision follows within a period measured in weeks once the file is complete, though a foreign party should expect the timeline to depend on how quickly translations and any evidence abroad are gathered.
Can the other side object?
Yes. The other party and the arbitrator concerned are heard before the court decides, and either may submit its own account of the disclosure or its absence. This corrects a common assumption: a challenge is not a one-sided motion decided without a response from the other side.
What follows the decision?
If the court excludes the arbitrator, a replacement is appointed under the same rules that governed the original appointment, and the tribunal's composition is corrected before proceedings continue. If the court rejects the challenge, the arbitrator continues and the case resumes from where it paused.
LISTINA produces factual reports from documents and public registers. It does not provide legal advice and does not represent parties. Where a matter requires representation before a Czech court or authority, it is handled by a collaborating advocate.
A challenge that misses its moment cannot be refiled once the award is issued. LISTINA delivers a factual report on the appointment record, the disclosure history, and the timeline of discovery within 5–8 working days, so the challenge can be filed on a documented basis. Representation before the court, where needed, is provided by a collaborating advocate. Write to info@listinafirm.com.