Introduction Ethiopia’s Federal Supreme Court Cassation Division released its latest volume of decisions (28) recently. One of the compiled decisions concerns whether a court may decline jurisdiction on the basis of an arbitration agreement even when the defendant has not invoked the arbitration agreement to object to the jurisdiction of the court. While the court, in accordance with the repealed provisions of the Civil Code and Civil Procedure Code, decided that the courts may invoke an arbitration clause on their own motion, the reasoning and outcome would likely differ under the new law i.e. the Arbitration and Conciliation Working Procedure Proclamation No. 1237/2021 (Arbitration Proclamation).

Let alone in countries with less developed arbitration industries such as Ethiopia, pathological arbitration clauses are common in countries like the Switzerland, UK, Singapore, and France as well. As stated here, “[a]t least 30 percent of cases have a threshold dispute over arbitrability due to poor drafting of the arbitration clause”.

Part of the Ethiopian government’s actions to reduce Covid-19’s effect on the economy is the recently issued directive to remit tax liabilities of taxpayers number 64/2020 (the “Directive”). This directive was issued by the Ministry of Finance pursuant to the mandate bestowed to it by the Federal Tax Administration Proclamation Number 983/2016. The purpose of the directive is to reduce the damage caused by Covid-19 on taxpayers. And, the tax liabilities subject to remission are tax liabilities of before and during 2018.