Originally from American Review of International Arbitration - ARIA

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I. INTRODUCTION

On February 27, 1992 the Swedish Government issued instructions for the preparation of a new arbitration act intended to replace the current Arbitration Act of 19291 (as amended). Consequently, a committee (“the Committee”), with a number of Sweden’s leading experts on arbitration law, was formed with the task of preparing a statutory text and an accompanying report on the subject. In June 1994, the Committee published its proposal for a statutory text and a report on a new arbitration act,2 which was submitted to, among others, foreign arbitration experts. A bill, which included the draft act and extensive commentary (“the Bill”) based on the Committee’s proposal, was introduced in the Swedish parliament by the Ministry of Justice on November 12, 1998.3 This article examines and hopefully sheds some light on the new Swedish arbitration act (“the New Arbitration Act”), which entered into force on April 1, 1999.