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Stockholm Arbitration Report (SAR)

Preview Page SAR 2004 - 2

I. Introduction

The practice of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC Institute), in matters of jurisdiction1 and challenges of arbitrators, attracts a great deal of attention from practitioners. To meet this interest, the Institute from time to time publishes information on these matters, and previous articles have appeared in the Stockholm Arbitration Report 1999:23, 2000:24 and 2002:1.

An opinion sometimes voiced is that arbitration is moving away from the fast, swift procedure once intended, turning into a copy of its usually more time consuming and costly sister court litigation. International arbitration appears to have become burdened by jurisdictional objections, challenges and other procedural twists and turns invented by creative counsel, achieving little but slowing down the process and running up the bills. True or false?

First, it could be observed that the notion that the number of challenges of awards have increased dramatically is, at least from a Swedish perspective, exaggerated. In fact, a recent study shows that challenges are few, and examples of successful challenges even fewer. Hence, arbitration still is, also in practice, a one-stop procedure.