Undoubtedly, one of the key structural changes in the ongoing arbitration reform, discussed in detail in Issues No. 267 and No. 270 of our Legal Digest, is the establishment of a Unified Register of Arbitrations (the “Register”). The Register will be maintained by the Ministry of Justice and will contain data on all registered arbitral institutions and the proceedings conducted before them, as well as on arbitral proceedings with a place of arbitration in Bulgaria when they are: (i) ad hoc arbitrations (established to resolve a specific dispute), or (ii) proceedings administered by a permanent arbitral institution with registered headquarters abroad. The entry in this Register will be a mandatory prerequisite for any arbitral institution to perform legitimate dispute resolution activities.
All registered arbitral institutions will be required to ensure a minimum set of elements characteristic of judicial bodies - an adopted statute governing their structure and organization, a list of arbitrators, an official tariff of fees and costs, maintenance of office premises, a file registry and archive, as well as a website providing an electronic case management system through which parties can easily access documents and track procedural actions in their cases.
To establish clear rules on how the Register will operate, on 10.10.2025 was published for public consultation a draft Regulation on the Register of Arbitrations (the “Regulation”). The Regulation defines the conditions and procedures for the initial registration of arbitral institutions, for the registration of subsequent amendments and deletions, and for access to the information by third parties. The intended outcome is greater transparency and institutional oversight of arbitration activity.
The initial registration procedure will be conducted entirely electronically. Each applicant must submit a set of documents as a condition for registration, including: data on the legal entity under which the arbitral institution is established, the website of its electronic case management system, a list of arbitrators (at least three persons), rules governing its structure and organization, a fee tariff, and a detailed description of the arbitration’s office premises (number of rooms, purpose, and area, including file registry and archive). The Regulation also provides a technical option to submit information only about a specific case where the arbitration is ad hoc or conducted by a foreign arbitral institution when arbitration takes place on Bulgarian territory.
Where deficiencies are identified in the initial application and its attachments, or if changes occur in already registered circumstances, the Regulation establishes short corrective procedures and respectively obliges the entities concerned to submit updated applications regarding the changed circumstances within seven days of the change.
A matter of particular interest is access to the information entered for each arbitral institution. Electronic access will be free and public with regard to arbitral institutions and the names and professions of their arbitrators. This means that any user will be able to verify which institutions are registered and who their listed arbitrators are.
However, all other data and documents in the Register - such as personal information, declarations and credentials of arbitrators, and supporting documentation proving compliance with the statutory requirements (e.g. office descriptions, university diplomas, etc.) - will be accessible only to the Minister of Justice, the officials responsible for maintaining the Register, the Inspectorate under the Minister of Justice (pursuant to the Judicial System Act), and the courts. The draft Regulation does not explicitly state whether the fee tariffs and internal rules of arbitral institutions will be publicly available. Logically, such documents should be required to be published and regularly updated on the institutions’ own websites.
Access to the electronic case management system of an arbitral institution will be granted exclusively to judges of the Supreme Court of Cassation, the regional courts, and the Sofia City Court, for the purposes of examining claims for annulment of arbitral awards and issuing writs of execution in respect of concluded arbitration cases.
Searches within the public interface of the Register will be possible using specific criteria: the name or registration number (EIK/BULSTAT) of the legal entity under which the arbitral institution is established, the name of the arbitral institution, the name of an arbitrator, the name of a party to a case, and a time period.
Although not expressly stated, it is most likely that public searches (both within the Register and on the websites of arbitral institutions) will provide only general information - confirming the existence of a given arbitral institution and the existence of a particular case, the appointed arbitrators, and the parties involved - without access to the contents of arbitral awards, procedural acts, or detailed case information.
The Regulation is expected to enter into force on 3.12.2025, marking the beginning of the Register’s operation. The introduction of this unified public register represents an important step toward a more transparent and traceable arbitration environment, facilitating companies that rely on efficient and flexible mechanisms for dispute resolution.
