What's New in European Arbitration - Dispute Resolution Journal - Vol. 70, No. 1

Author(s):

Stephan Wilske

Isabelle Michou

Todd J. Fox

Alfred Siwy

Page Count:

8 pages

Media Description:

1 PDF Download

Published:

March, 2015

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Recent Decisions by National Courts

THE VIEW FROM EUROPE

Austria. As of January 1 2014, the Austrian Supreme Court decides in

first and last instance on the challenge of arbitrators. Already in the

course of the last year, the new competence of the Supreme Court has

led to some interesting decisions on the standard of independence of

arbitrators. In two recent decisions, the Supreme Court has provided

some insights into its position on the standard of independence.

In the first decision, dated August 5, 2014 (Docket No. 18 ONc

2/14k), the Supreme Court had the opportunity to decide on a number

of grounds invoked as a basis for a challenge of an arbitrator. It

denied them all. In that case one of the party-appointed arbitrators, a

retired professor of civil law, had disclosed certain connections he

entertained to one of the sides (which consisted of 38 parties). The

other side however, after having conducted research, came up with a

number of further ties between the arbitrator and the side appointing

him, which it alleged was sufficient for a challenge.

The first ground alleged was that one person on the side appointing

him had taught together with the arbitrator at university and another

person from that side had published a paper together with him. The

Supreme Court rejected the argument explaining that purely academic

contacts could not be assumed to have any influence on the decisionmaking

of the arbitrator.