This Practice Note considers challenges to the jurisdiction of arbitral tribunals under the Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (the Arbitration Law).

Challenging the jurisdiction of a Chinese arbitration institution to hear a matter usually involves challenging the binding force of an Arbitration agreement. Article 5 of the Arbitration Law gives arbitral tribunals exclusive Authority to hear cases when the parties ‘have concluded an arbitration agreement’. At the same time, Article 5 of the Arbitration Law prevents the PRC court from accepting a case ‘unless the arbitration agreement is null and void’.

Chinese law envisages two types of challenges to the jurisdictions of arbitral tribunals, namely:

1. •

   total challenges—as the name implies, are challenges to dispute the existence or validity of the jurisdiction granting arbitration clause

2. •

   partial challenges—admit the existence of an arbitration clause but refute that the dispute is within the scope of the arbitration clause being relied upon

A party challenging the validity of an arbitration agreement may, according to article 20 of