Judgment C51225 of the Ontario Superior Court of April 29, 2010, with respect to the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal, Canada (in matters of Donaldson International Livestock Ltd. v. Znamensky Selekcionno-Gibridny Center LLC)

Rationes Decidendi:

In proceedings on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, the court must hear and decide on the objection that one party in arbitration received a death threat which discouraged them from participating in oral hearings before the arbitral tribunal. Since the death threat affected the party’s willingness to participate in the arbitration proceedings, the application of issue estoppels would have resulted in a violation of the principle of due process.
If the other party to the arbitration proceedings (i.e., the one which purportedly issued death threats to the other party) proposes that witness testimony be heard, e.g. with the aid of videoconferencing technology, this does not in and of itself constitute a change in the venue of hearing [Moscow], as this is merely a change of the location in which the respective witness or party would give their testimony. For this reason, the offer to proceed in such manner [i.e., to hear testimony via videoconferencing] is not enough to eliminate the death threat.