NEWSLETTER-2019-metin

146 NEWSLETTER 2019 all issues. The main purposes of consolidation are, amongst others, providing procedural efficiency, lowering the costs, elimination of risks that may arise from inconsistency between decisions granted in separate proceedings, and enabling arbitral tribunals to have a better understanding and fuller view of the transaction at issue. The competent authority to consolidate arbitrations is the Court. The decision on consolidation is administrative, not legal. It is not pri- ma facie unlike the Court’s decisions as to jurisdiction. Accordingly, the Court’s decision on consolidation is final, and arbitral tribunals cannot decide again as to consolidation thereafter. The Court cannot make such decision on its own initiative. The Court shall decide on consolidation only if one of the parties has submitted a request. However, the Court is entitled to decide on con- solidation at its own discretion. With the usage of the word ‘may’, the ICC Rules clarifies that the Court is not obliged to consolidate the arbitrations, even if the conditions have been met. In deciding whether to consolidate, the Court may take into account any circumstances it considers to be relevant, including whether one or more arbitrators have been confirmed or appointed in more than one of the arbitrations and, if so, whether the same or different persons have been confirmed or appointed. The conditions for consolidation are set out in Article 10 of the ICC Rules. This article does not specify the form and content of the request for consolidation; thus, the request may be made even with a simple letter addressed to the Court. Moreover, this article does not establish a time limit. The Court will consider the phases of the arbi- tration, and will decide on the matter without any time limitation. As is pointed out in the article, among the provisions on complex arbitrations, Article 10 stands alone by not making any reference to Article 6(3)-6(7). This is conceivable as Article 10 covers the period after the prima facie assessment as to jurisdiction is made by the Court, and the subject matter concerning consolidations concerns arbitrations that are pending. The first condition for consolidation is the presence of two or more arbitrations. These arbitrations must be conducted according to