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Stockholm Arbitration Report (SAR)

 Preview Page SAR 1999- 1

1. INTRODUCTION

The principal provisions relating to the arbitrators are contained in Sections 7 to 18 of the new Arbitration Act under the heading “The Arbitrators”. However, reference may be made also to other provisions, such as Sections 1 and 2, 20 and 21, 27, 34, 37 to 42, and 44. Apart from details, the substance of the provisions of the new Act on this subject is not very different from the old Swedish Arbitration Act of 1929, but considerable modernisation has taken place in the presentation of the rules, which will undoubtedly facilitate the use of the provisions. It is also worth noticing that the provisions to a large extent are governed by a principle of party autonomy and that, although the UNCITRAL Model Law is not taken as the basis of the Act, there is a considerable convergence of its solutions with those contained in the Model Law1. What has been said about the similarity between the provisions of the old and the new Act on the subject of the arbitrators is true to an even greater extent with respect to the old and the new rules on this subject contained in the Rules of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC Rules). They shall be treated below together with the corresponding provisions of the Act, and where relevant will be compared with rules of other arbitration institutions.

2. PERSONAL CONDITIONS OF APPOINTMENT

In principle, any person may be appointed to act as an arbitrator, Section 7 of the Act. Nothing prevents the appointment of foreigners or non-lawyers as arbitrators, although, in contrast to Article 11 of the Model Law, nothing is said in the Arbitration Act in this respect2. Where parties to an arbitration are from different countries, this may be a good reason for not appointing a chairman of the Arbitral Tribunal from any of those countries, unless the parties have agreed otherwise, or it is justified by the circumstances, cf. Article 9, paragraphs 1 and 5 of the ICC Rules 1998, but see Article 6.1 of the LCIA Rules, which prevents appointment of a chairman of the same nationality as a party,