Kuwait’s representative to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Commercial Arbitration Center, Tareq Yousuf Al Shumaimry, has been elected as the new Secretary-General of the Center.
Following approval of the appointment by the Center’s Board of Directors, the Chairman of the Board, Sami Mohammed Zainal said that the extensive technical and practical experience in arbitration and management that Al-Shumaimry enjoys will now have a positive impact on the Center and its work.
He pointed out that the new Secretary-General, who holds a BA in Economics, Accounting and Political Studies from Kuwait University, served as Chairman of the Public Budgets Committee at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, and was the former Deputy Director of the Judicial Arbitration Department in Kuwait’s Ministry of Justice.
The Center’s chairman also added that Al-Shumaimry has a number of international memberships to his credit, including as a member of the International Federation of Journalists (Brussels) since 2003, a member of the International Arbitration Committee (Canada), and a member of the Arbitration Center of the Kuwait Society of Engineers.
He noted that the new Secretary-General has participated in a number of judicial, economic and financial courses inside and outside Kuwait, as well as conferences and related courses in local and international arbitration. Al-Shumaimry also served as a lecturer in various institutions in Kuwait, including the Kuwait Institute for Judicial Studies 2003-2004 and as a lecturer at the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training 2009-2010.
For his part, Tareq Al-Shumaimry expressed his thanks to the representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council members, members of the Board of Directors of the Center for the confidence vested in him through this appointment, which would enable him to share his international experience in cooperation with local expertise and competencies in the GCC so as to realize the best contemporary practices in modern arbitration processes.
Al-Shumaimry underlined that the Center enjoys legal and legislative ground in the GCC states that allows it to provide advanced international arbitration in settling disputes in the best way possible. He added this amicable settlement process contributes to supporting the commercial sector and attracting foreign investments by providing a successful and easy way for litigants to settle potential commercial disputes in accordance with recognized international frameworks.
The GCC Commercial Arbitration Center (CAC), instituted by the GCC Supreme Council at their 14th Summit Conference held in Riyadh in 1993, was launched in 1995 with its headquarters in Manama Bahrain. The CAC is the regional arbitration authority for the six-nation GCC states, and has jurisdiction to hear trade and business disputes between GCC nationals or between them and other nationals, including natural and corporate persons.
Although instituted by the Gulf Cooperation Council, and considered one of its legal organs, the Center is a separate entity independent from the legal system in the GCC states, and enjoys administrative, financial and technical independence.
