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Stockholm Arbitration Report (SAR)

Preview Page SAR 2004 - 2

Observations by Diederik de Groot

Subject-Matter: Non-compliance with mandatory European telecommunications law—does it constitute a violation of Swedish ordre public ?

Finding: European Council’s Directive no. 98/13/EC and European Council Decision no. 98/482/EC do not have direct effect against private entities, and may therefore not constitute grounds for declaring an award invalid for reasons of ordre public.

Parties:
Claimant: Dirland Télécom S.A. (France)
Respondents: Viking Telecom AB (Sweden)

Place of Court Proceedings: Gothenburg, Sweden

Applicable Law: Swedish Arbitration Act

Excerpts below are an unofficial translation of the proceedings in the Court of Appeal for Western Sweden.

Summary
The dispute in the case arose as a result of the sale of call routers; a type of telephone equipment. The call router is a device installed by telephone subscribers to route the call through a certain operator’s network in order to achieve lower costs.