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Stockholm Arbitration Report (SAR) 

Preview Page SAR 2003 - 1

I. INTRODUCTION

By royal decree of 9 April 1999, a Committee was appointed to prepare a draft version of a new Norwegian statute on civil procedure. The Dispute Act of 1915 is the current main regulation, and Chapter 32 of this statute regulates arbitration. The existing regulation on arbitration is quite brief and has not been comprehensively revised since its entry into force in 1927. As to the arbitration provision, the Committee considered a revision particularly in light of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (Model Law) becoming influential in a number of jurisdictions. The Committee delivered two reports in late 2001, including a separate report on arbitration. A white paper on arbitration is expected in the Parliament in autumn 2003.

This presentation will give a brief overview of the Committee’s proposed regulation regarding arbitration. Special attention will be given to the question of whether an arbitration agreement shall be included in a transfer of the legal relationship governed by the arbitration agreement. The issue of confidentiality and public access to arbitral proceedings and arbitral
awards will also be discussed. The special provision on consumer protection in section 2-3 will not be dealt with. The article is mainly based on the report on arbitration from the appointed Committee published in Norges offentlige utredninger (NOU) 2001: 33. This report also contains the draft statute on arbitration and a summary in English. An important source of information for the Committee regarding the preparation and content of the Model Law was Peter Binder, International Commercial Arbitration in UNCITRAL Model Law jurisdictions, London 2000. Binder’s book has also served as a standard reference to the present article.