The Swedish Arbitration Act of 1999, Five Years On: A Critical Review of Strengths and Weaknesses

In 2004, Sweden’s Arbitration Act of 1999 was five years old. Inspired by UNCITRAL’s Model Law while perpetuating features of the 1929 Act, it introduced many new concepts, such as establishing rules to determine the law applicable to the agreement to arbitrate, authorizing the arbitrators to decide the existence of facts and to fill gaps in contracts, making competition law issues arbitrable, affording the respondent the right to have the dispute resolved if the claimant withdraws its claim, authorizing truncated tribunals where an arbitrator obstructs the work of the tribunal. The new Act further gives arbitrators power to decide interim measures of protection and accepts that foreign parties waive in advance the possibility to set aside the arbitral award. In order to learn about the experience of Swedish and foreign practitioners, arbitrators and judges during the five years since the Act was adopted, the Stockholm Arbitration Report and the Institute of Arbitration Law at the University of Stockholm, organized a symposium on 7 and 8 October 2004. The symposium, was arranged in co-operation with the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC), the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC), the ICC International Court of Arbitration, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the CCI of the Russian Federation, JAMS, the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), Revue de l’arbitrage, the Swedish Bar Association and UNCITRAL. This book contains the papers presented to the six working sessions and the full discussions that took place. Contributors Include: * Hans Bagner (Vinge, Stockholm) * Axel Baum (Hughes, Hubbard & Red LLP. Paris) * Mats Bendrik (Cederquist, Stockholm) * Robert Briner (ICC International Court of Arbitration, Paris) * Robert B Davidson (Executive Director of JAMS Arbitration Practice, New York) * Filip De Ly (Erasmus University, Utrecht) * Nils Eliasson (Mannheimer Swartling,Stockholm) * Ulf Franke (Arbitration Institute of the SCC, Stockholm) * Johan Gernandt (Gernandt & Danielsson, Stockholm) * David Goldberg (SJ Berwin, London) * Jeffrey M Hertzfeld (Salans, Paris) * Kaj Hober (Mannheimer Swartling, Stockholm) * Sigvard Jarvin (Jones Day, Paris) * Alexander S Komarov (International Arbitration Court, Russian CCI, Moscow) * Sergei Lebedev (Head of the Private International and Civil Law Department at the Moscow Institute of International Relations, Moscow) * Claes Lundblad (Mannheimer Swartling, Stockholm) * Richard W Naimark (International Centre for Dispute Resolution, New York) * Gunnar Nerdrum (Cabinet Taylor, Paris) * Eric M Runesson (Sandart & Partners, Stockholm) * Mika Savola (Hannes Snellman, Helsinki) * Jernej Sekolec (UNCITRAL, Vienna) * Christopher R Seppala (White & Case, Paris) * Patricia Shaughnessy (Stockholm University) * Christer Soderlund (Partner, Vinge Law Firm, Stockholm) * David St John Sutton (Barrister, Paris) * Carita Wallgren (Roschier Holmberg, Helsinki) * Claes Zettermarck (White & Case, Stockholm) * Jianlin Zhu (CIETAC, Beijing)