Originally from: Stockholm International Arbitration Review

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THE 2007 ARBITRATION RULES OF THE ARBITRATION INSTITUTE OF THE STOCKHOLM CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Annette Magnusson and Patricia Shaughnessy

The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC Institute) has adopted new rules, which came into effect on January 1, 2007 (2007 SCC Rules). While the 2007 SCC Rules do not substantially deviate from the former rules and do not introduce any novel or unusual provisions, there are some significant changes, a number of which will be discussed in this article.

1. Revision of the SCC Rules

The 2007 SCC Rules were drafted by a committee of Swedish arbitration specialists who were given the mandate to review the existing SCC Rules and to suggest revisions.2 The committee began its work in early 2006 and in the fall it distributed its draft of the 2007 SCC Rules for public comment both domestically and internationally. A public hearing was held on the rules and many written comments and suggestions were received and reviewed. The committee further revised the proposed rules in response to these comments and submitted the proposed rules to the Board of the Arbitration Institute for approval in late October, 2006. Following the Board’s approval, the rules were presented to the Board of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, which approved the 2007 SCC Rules on November 13, 2006. The 2007 SCC Rules will be applied to all cases filed after January 1, 2007.

The work to review and revise the rules was not a response to any particular dissatisfaction with the previous rules, which date from 1999 (1999 SCC Rules). The 1999 SCC Rules had provided an effective and flexible system for conducting both domestic and international arbitrations in Sweden. However, the English version of the old Rules contained some linguistic imperfections stemming from the fact that they were a translation from the Swedish version, which was the original drafting language.