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Stockholm Arbitration Report (SAR)

Preview Page SAR 2004 - 2

1. The Swedish Arbitration Act (lag [1999:116] om skiljeförfarande) now in force is of relatively recent date. It was promulgated in early 1999 and entered into force on 1 April 1999. It contains a last chapter with the heading “Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards etc.” Before 1 April 1999, there were rules on the same subject in the Act on Foreign Arbitration Agreements and Arbitral Awards (lag [1929:147] om utländska skiljeavtal och skiljedomar). The old and the new rules on recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards are similar. Both were closely modeled after the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. In the new 1999 Act, the grounds for refusal of recognition and enforcement in Sections 54 and 55 are practically the same as those enumerated in Article V of the New York Convention.

2. According to the Arbitration Act, a foreign award is defined as an award rendered outside Sweden. This corresponds to Article 1(1) of the New York Convention, which provides that the Convention shall apply to the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards made in a State other than the State where recognition and enforcement are sought. The Swedish legislator found it important to provide for a quick and efficient exequatur procedure for foreign awards and, therefore, chose to place the responsibility for the examination of all applications for recognition and enforcement on one single court, namely the Svea Court of Appeal (Svea hovrätt) with its seat in Stockholm, instead of dividing these tasks between
several courts in various parts of the country.