We are happy to announce that 2007 was the best year in SCC history with 170 new cases filed, constituting the largest caseload ever. More than half of the cases were international.

There is massive interest in the SCC and arbitration as dispute resolution method. As an organization serving the international and domestic business community this is, needless to say, very satisfying. We are honoured that parties and legal practitioners worldwide continue to have such confidence in SCC arbitration which enables the SCC to maintain its position as one of the world’s leading arbitration institutions.

More than half of the caseload in 2007 was international cases involving parties from almost 30 countries. It may be noted that the SCC continues to be a popular venue for so-called East West disputes with parties from former CIS countries. Further, the SCC had many cases with Chinese and Singaporean parties. The top five nations appearing before the SCC are Sweden, Russia, China, United States and Germany.


In this context, it can also be noted that the new SCC Arbitration Rules, which entered into force on 1 January 2007, are considered to be a modern, effective and flexible set of rules among practitioners in the field of international commercial arbitration. Without a doubt, this first year with the new Rules has been a success. We look forward to an interesting and hopefully, equally thriving 2008!

More SCC statistics



Award set aside because of biased chair

In a recent decision from the Swedish Supreme Court an arbitral award was set aside due to disqualification of the chairperson of the arbitral tribunal. The reason was that the chair had connections to a law firm where one of the parties was a major client. The Court was influenced by international practice and inter alia looked at the UNCITRAL Model law, the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration, the ICC and the SCC Rules as well as an opinion submitted by the SCC at the request of the Supreme Court.

The SCC welcomes the decision manifesting the importance of, from an objective perspective, completely impartial and independent arbitrators. Mr Martin Wallin (Linklaters, Stockholm) comments upon the Supreme Court’s decision).

Read Mr Wallin’s commentary here
Read the decision here



Survey on the Swedish challenge procedure

It is often considered among practitioners in the in the global arbitration community that challenges of arbitral awards have increased. Ms Christin Brohmé (Vinge, Stockholm) has written a thesis on the challenge procedures in Sweden during the last decade and found that only a very few actions were successful. She concludes, however, that it is of utmost important that the courts resist attempts to make the arbitral process into a multi-instance procedure.

Read a summary of Ms Brohmé’s thesis here



SIAR 2/2007 out for sale!

This issue of the Stockholm International Arbitration Review (SIAR) includes, inter alia, extracts of an SCC arbitral award on several interesting issues, such as jurisdiction, arbitrability, applicable law and who is a party to the arbitration agreement. Mr Phillip Capper (Lovells and Professor at King’s College, London) comments upon the award. Read the award and Mr Capper’s commentary here Order SIAR here

SCC fast track arbitration in Istanbul

At a conference in Istanbul, Turkey, on how to make arbitration more effective, Mr Patrik Schöldström (Hökerberg & Söderqvist, Stockholm) talked about fast track dispute resolution and the Swedish experience for reducing costs and delays. The presentation focused on the SCC Rules for Expedited Arbitration (link) and generated great interest.

Read Mr Schöldström’s report



Conference on arbitration in today's China

The SCC and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) are jointly organizing a Conference on Resolving Business Disputes in Today's China. The conference will be held in Stockholm on 18 April 2008 . Juris Conferences of New York will sponsor the conference. Michael J Moser (HKIAC) and Ulf Franke (SCC) will act as Co-chairs for panels with prominent speakers from China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Europe. A copy of the program and a registration form will soon be made available on the SCC website.



The SCC holds seminar at Eurolawyer

The SCC will participate in Eurolawyer 2008 which takes place on 4-5 of April 2008 in London, UK. The conference will focus on corporate legal issues for EU and CIS companies, such as for example dispute resolution options available, M&A, joint-ventures and insolvency. For more information visit www.elforum.eu/en

New staff member!

Ms Nina Berggren is a new member of the case management team at the SCC. Ms Berggren started her career at the Swedish Ministry of Finance where she worked at the Legal Secretariat and was involved in implementing EC Directives concerning public procurement into Swedish law. Thereafter she joined the Swedish Bar Association where she mainly worked with supervision of the professional activities of advocates, disciplinary measures against Bar members and admission of members. Apart from Swedish and English Ms Berggren speaks French and Farsi.