I. INTRODUCTION

 

Despite the fact that Germany only has some 80 million inhabitants, the size

of German exports ranks third worldwide after China and the U.S., countries with

much larger populations. Germany’s great focus on exports makes the country

automatically closely intertwined with the world economy. As a consequence of

the size of German exports and the multitude of economic international

relationships of German companies, inevitably commercial disputes are bound to

come up. It comes therefore as no surprise that German parties form a large

percentage of claimants or respondents in international arbitration proceedings.

 

 

While many international contracts to which German corporations are a party

stipulate international arbitral institutions outside Germany like the International

Chamber of Commerce (“ICC”), London Court of International Arbitration

(“LCIA”), and Singapore International Arbitration Centre (“SIAC”) as arbitral

institutions, there is a noticeable increase in arbitration clauses that stipulate

Germany as the venue.

 

 

International parties are discovering Germany as a suitable place for

arbitration. As this summary will try to show, Germany compares favorably with

its international competitors and there are good reasons for considering Germany

as a venue for international arbitrations.

 

 

II. GERMANY’S LONG ARBITRATION HISTORY

 

For 130 years, Germany has taken a favorable approach to arbitration.

Arbitration was codified in Germany for the first time in 1877 in the 10th Book of

the Zivilprozessordnung (“ZPO”) (Code of Civil Procedure).1 The guiding

principles of this early codification were the respect for far-reaching party

autonomy and a minimum of judicial intervention.

 

 

While these principles are widely recognized today, at the time when the first

German arbitration law entered into force, this favorable attitude toward

arbitration was in stark contrast to the skepticism with which arbitration was
treated in other legal systems.