CCJA (Common Court of Justice and Arbitration)

The Common Court of Justice and Arbitration (CCJA) is the Abidjan court that hears final appeals on OHADA (Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa) law disputes and runs an arbitration center. A dispute over a uniform act decided on appeal in Dakar does not go up to the Supreme Court of Senegal: Article 14 of the OHADA Treaty assigns final appeal to the Common Court of Justice and Arbitration, which sits in Abidjan. The CCJA hears appeals against the appellate decisions of national courts in every case that raises the application of the uniform acts. When it quashes a decision, it takes up the case and rules on the merits, without remand, which sets it apart from a French-style court of cassation. A national supreme court that rules anyway risks having its decision declared void by the CCJA, on application by the party that had raised lack of jurisdiction. A second function, rarer: the Court administers arbitrations under its own rules, revised in 2017, without deciding the merits itself. An award rendered under its auspices has final res judicata effect in each member state and receives exequatur there, which only the Court can grant (Article 25 of the Treaty), by an order of its president (Article 30 of the Arbitration Rules). One procedure for seventeen territories, where an award rendered elsewhere goes before the courts of each country in which enforcement is sought. The Court's own judgments are enforceable in the territory of each member state (Article 20). An underwriter reading a concession or supply contract in the zone therefore looks at the dispute resolution clause. A CCJA arbitration, an ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) arbitration in Paris and an ICSID (International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes) claim do not open the same enforcement path, and a non-payment loss is recovered faster or slower depending on the choice made at signing. The caveat is known to every practitioner. Exequatur opens the way, it seizes nothing, and enforcement against a state, a local authority or a public institution runs into the immunity from execution that the uniform act on enforcement procedures, revised in 2023, reserves for legal persons governed by public law, unless expressly waived; a state-owned company incorporated under private law no longer benefits from it.