Originally from International Arbitration Court Decisions - 3rd Edition

AUSTRIA

COURT DECISIONS FROM THE AUSTRIAN

SUPREME COURT CASE NO 9 Ob 126/04a AND CASE NO 6 Ob 207/06v RENDERED IN JUNE 1005 AND NOVEMBER 2006

“The B-Bank and Manfred S cases”

Subject Matter:
The nature of the relationship between the parties of an arbitration and the arbitrators.

Finding:
In both decisions, one regarding arbitrators liability and the other arbitrator’s remuneration, the Austrian Supreme Court applied a contractual approach to the relationship between the parties of an arbitration and the arbitrators.

[In the first case, the Supreme Court disregarded the argument of a liability based on office (“Amt”), defined arbitrator’s liability as purely contractual and thereby qualified arbitrator-contract as a service contract (“Werkvertrag”) between the arbitrator and the parties.

In the second case, the Supreme Court ruled that an arbitrator has a contractual duty to disclose possible conflicts of interest early on in the proceedings. The failure to do so deprives the arbitrator of remuneration.]