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Simon Gabriel, Johannes Landbrecht; ICC Bull. 1/2022, p. 49 et seqq.

The Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law — Chap­ter 12 of the Swiss Pri­vate Inter­na­tion­al Law Act (‘PILA’) — was orig­i­nal­ly adopt­ed in 1987, almost at the same time as the UNCI­TRAL Mod­el Law on Inter­na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Arbi­tra­tion (1985). More than three decades lat­er, on 1 Jan­u­ary 2021, a thor­ough reform of Chap­ter 12 PILA entered into force with the fol­low­ing main objec­tives: (i) cod­i­fy decades of Swiss arbi­tra­tion case law, (ii) make Chap­ter 12 (even more) user-friend­ly, and (iii) fur­ther strength­en par­ty auton­o­my. This arti­cle intro­duces the recent key amend­ments to Chap­ter 12 and makes, where rel­e­vant, a brief com­par­i­son with the approach­es tak­en by the UNCI­TRAL Mod­el Law to pro­vide back­ground to a wider inter­na­tion­al audience.

Intro­duc­tion

Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law is cod­i­fied as Chap­ter 12 of the Swiss Pri­vate Inter­na­tion­al Law Act of 18 Decem­ber 1987 (the ​‘PILA’). While Chap­ter 12 PILA reg­u­lates by and large the same issues as the UNCI­TRAL Mod­el Law 1985 (the ​‘Mod­el Law’),¹ it is nev­er­the­less an inde­pen­dent and unique ver­sion of an arbi­tra­tion law.² With the excep­tion of minor amend­ments, Chap­ter 12 PILA remained untouched for more than three decades. It has served the arbi­tra­tion com­mu­ni­ty well.

Giv­en its over­all suc­cess, the need for a reform of Chap­ter 12 PILA was not obvi­ous. Still, the Swiss stake­hold­ers did not want to rest on their lau­rels and, in 2012, the Swiss par­lia­ment request­ed the Swiss gov­ern­ment to pre­pare a reform bill that ​‘pre­serves the attrac­tive­ness of Switzer­land as an inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion hub’.³ An in-depth mar­ket and reg­u­la­to­ry cost assess­ment study was com­mis­sioned and pre­sent­ed in 2017.⁴ A first draft of a reform bill was pub­lished in the same year and, fol­low­ing pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions, a revised draft bill was released in 2018. The lat­ter iden­ti­fied three main objec­tives: (i) cod­i­fy the case law of the high­est Swiss court, i.e. the Swiss Fed­er­al Court (the ​‘SFC’, the Bun­des­gericht or Tri­bunal fédéral); (ii) clar­i­fy Chap­ter 12 PILA for user- friend­ly pur­pos­es; and (iii) fur­ther strength­en par­ty auton­o­my in line with inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ments, such as accept­ing the valid­i­ty of uni­lat­er­al arbi­tra­tion claus­es (e.g. in wills or trust instru­ments), and the valid­i­ty of arbi­tra­tion agree­ments that do not stip­u­late a seat. The reform, in line with these objec­tives, was adopt­ed on 9 June 2020⁵ and entered into force on Jan­u­ary 2021.⁶

Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law had a dif­fer­ent struc­ture from the Mod­el Law when it was first intro­duced. This is still the case fol­low­ing the 2021 reform, which retained the gen­er­al archi­tec­ture of Chap­ter 12 PILA.

1. Key over-arch­ing prin­ci­ples in Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law

The scope of appli­ca­tion of the PILA

Swiss law dis­tin­guish­es inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic arbi­tra­tion. While the for­mer is cod­i­fied in Chap­ter 12 PILA, the lat­ter is dealt with in Part 3 of the Swiss Code of Civ­il Pro­ce­dure (the ​‘Swiss CCP’). When com­pared to Arti­cle 1(3) and (4) of the Mod­el Law, the Swiss def­i­n­i­tion of ​‘inter­na­tion­al’ in Arti­cle 176(1) PILA is much simpler:

The pro­vi­sions of this Chap­ter [12] shall apply to arbi­tra­tions with their seat in Switzer­land if at least one of the par­ties to the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment, at the time of its con­clu­sion, did not have its domi­cile, habit­u­al res­i­dence or seat in Switzer­land.⁷

Under the old ver­sion of Arti­cle 176(1) PILA, which referred gen­er­al­ly to ​‘one of the par­ties’ rather than specif­i­cal­ly to ​‘one of the par­ties to the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment’, the Swiss Fed­er­al Court con­sid­ered Chap­ter 12 PILA to apply if one of the par­ties to the arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings was domi­ciled out­side of Switzer­land at the time of the con­clu­sion of the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment. This con­fu­sion between the par­ties to the arbi­tra­tion pro­ceed­ings and to the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment was sub­ject to crit­i­cism by legal com­men­ta­tors.⁸ The leg­is­la­tor has now clar­i­fied that what mat­ters exclu­sive­ly is the domi­cile of the par­ties to the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment at the time of its con­clu­sion, irre­spec­tive of the par­ties’ sub­se­quent move out of/​into Switzer­land. In the con­text of part­ner­ship, joint ven­ture, or con­struc­tion agree­ments involv­ing mul­ti­ple par­ties and only one of them being locat­ed out­side of Switzer­land, for exam­ple, the PILA now applies (i) to the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment between the two par­ties domi­ciled in Switzer­land and (ii) to this arbi­tra­tion agree­ment even if the third par­ty lat­er moves to Switzer­land. It also no longer mat­ters which par­ty to the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment is ulti­mate­ly a par­ty to the proceedings.

Fur­ther­more, pur­suant to Arti­cle 176(2) PILA,⁹ the par­ties may freely choose between the above- men­tioned inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic arbi­tra­tion regimes:

The par­ties may, either in the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment or in a sub­se­quent agree­ment, exclude the appli­ca­tion of this Chap­ter [12] and agree on the appli­ca­tion of Part 3 of the [Swiss] CCP. The exclu­sion shall meet the con­di­tions as to form set out in Arti­cle 178(1).

The ref­er­ence to Arti­cle 178(1) PILA, at the end of this pro­vi­sion, was new­ly intro­duced in 2021 and the require­ment is there­fore for an agree­ment to be ​‘in writ­ing or in any oth­er man­ner that can be evi­denced by text’. Under the old law, no par­tic­u­lar form was pre­scribed for an agree­ment to opt out of Chap­ter 12 PILA,¹⁰ but the par­ties’ inten­tions had to be clear­ly expressed by the terms used.¹¹

Since Swiss arbi­tra­tion law only applies to arbi­tra­tions seat­ed in Switzer­land,¹² Arti­cle 176(3) PILA fur­ther­more clar­i­fies how to deter­mine the seat:

The seat of the arbi­tra­tion shall be deter­mined by the par­ties or by the arbi­tral insti­tu­tion des­ig­nat­ed by the par­ties, or, fail­ing which, by the arbi­tral tribunal.

All oth­er arbi­tra­tions, i.e. those with a seat abroad, are ​‘for­eign’ (see e.g. Art. 185a PILA). Swiss law thus dis­tin­guish­es between Swiss domes­tic arbi­tra­tion (gov­erned by the CCP), Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion (gov­erned by the PILA and the sub­ject of this arti­cle), and for­eign arbitration.

In prac­tice, many par­ties seem to choose arbi­tra­tion in Switzer­land with­out, how­ev­er, des­ig­nat­ing a seat with­in Switzer­land (e.g. ​‘arbi­tra­tion in Switzer­land’). How to deal with these so-called ​‘arbi­tra­tion in Switzer­land’ claus­es was pre­vi­ous­ly a mat­ter of considerable  uncer­tain­ty,¹³ in par­tic­u­lar if no mech­a­nism had been agreed or third-par­ty enti­ty deter­mined (e.g. an arbi­tral insti­tu­tion) to des­ig­nate the seat in lieu of the par­ties. The 2021 reform now clar­i­fies, in Arti­cle 179(2)(2) PILA, that if ​‘the par­ties have … mere­ly agreed that the seat of the arbi­tra­tion shall be in Switzer­land, the state court first seized shall have juris­dic­tion’ with regard to appoint­ing or replac­ing arbi­tra­tors, if need be.¹⁴ It can be deduced from that pro­vi­sion that the lack of a pre­cise seat does not, under Swiss law, ren­der arbi­tra­tion agree­ments over­all null and void. The ​‘arbi­tra­tion in Switzer­land’ claus­es are in prin­ci­ple valid and a seat will be deter­mined in accor­dance with the above-men­tioned mechanisms.

A lib­er­al con­cept of arbi­tra­bil­i­ty under Swiss law

While the Mod­el Law left the notion of arbi­tra­bil­i­ty open, Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law, in Arti­cle 177(1) PILA,¹⁵ defines this con­cept. It fol­lows a lib­er­al approach.

Arti­cle 177(2) PILA¹⁶ fur­ther­more cod­i­fies the prin­ci­ple of good faith in this con­text and pro­tects legit­i­mate expec­ta­tions of pri­vate par­ties where states and state enti­ties are involved:

Where a par­ty to the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment is a State, or an enter­prise held by, or an organ­i­sa­tion con­trolled by, a State, it may not invoke its own law in order to con­test the arbi­tra­bil­i­ty of a dis­pute or its capac­i­ty to be a par­ty to an arbitration.

The notions ​‘enter­prise held by’ and ​‘organ­i­sa­tion con­trolled by’ a State are inter­pret­ed wide­ly by the Swiss Fed­er­al Court.¹⁷

As with the scope of appli­ca­tion, the con­cept of arbi­tra­bil­i­ty remains untouched by the 2021 reform.

Implic­it waiv­er of the right to object

Arti­cle 4 of the Mod­el Law¹⁸ requires, as many insti­tu­tion­al arbi­tra­tion rules,¹⁹ that a par­ty object ​‘with­out undue delay’ to any pro­ce­dur­al irreg­u­lar­i­ty, lest this par­ty be deemed to have waived its right to object.

Pri­or to the 2021 reform, Chap­ter 12 PILA did not con­tain a cor­re­spond­ing pro­vi­sion, although the Swiss Fed­er­al Court already required time­ly objec­tions.²⁰ Arti­cle 182(4) PILA now cod­i­fies this case law:

A par­ty that pro­ceeds with the arbi­tra­tion with­out imme­di­ate­ly rais­ing an objec­tion to a vio­la­tion of pro­ce­dur­al rules which it knew or, exer­cis­ing due dili­gence, ought to have known, may not sub­se­quent­ly raise such objection.

As can be seen from its word­ing (‘ought to have known’), this pro­vi­sion enacts an objec­tive stan­dard.²¹ What counts is the point of view of a hypo­thet­i­cal and dili­gent­ly act­ing third party.

The role of Swiss courts in arbi­tral matters

Arti­cle 5 of the Mod­el Law high­lights that state courts shall not inter­vene in arbi­tral mat­ters ​‘except where so pro­vid­ed in this Law’. While Chap­ter 12 PILA does not con­tain such word­ing, the posi­tion under Swiss law is sim­i­lar in substance.

In Switzer­land, almost all judi­cial func­tions in sup­port of arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings are cen­tralised in the courts at the seat.²² More flex­i­ble is the state court juris­dic­tion relat­ing to pro­vi­sion­al and con­ser­va­to­ry mea­sures (Art. 183 PILA), allow­ing such mea­sures to be tak­en also by the courts in places where such mea­sures would need to be enforced. New­ly intro­duced in 2021, Arti­cle 185a PILA now also express­ly reg­u­lates the sup­port of for­eign arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings by Swiss courts.

(1) An arbi­tral tri­bunal sit­ting abroad or a par­ty to a for­eign arbi­tra­tion may request the assis­tance of the state court at the place where  a pro­vi­sion­al or con­ser­va­to­ry mea­sure is to be enforced. Arti­cle 183(2) and (3) shall apply by analogy.

(2) An arbi­tral tri­bunal sit­ting abroad or, with the con­sent of the arbi­tral tri­bunal, a par­ty to a for­eign arbi­tra­tion may request the assis­tance of the state court at the place where the tak­ing of evi­dence is to be car­ried out. Arti­cle 184(2) and (3) shall apply by analogy.

Final­ly, a typ­i­cal fea­ture of Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law remains its one-stop shop for set­ting aside pro­ceed­ings. The Swiss Fed­er­al Court serves as the ​‘sole judi­cial author­i­ty for recourse against an award’ (Art. 191 PILA).

2. The arbi­tra­tion agreement

The gen­er­al con­tent of the pro­vi­sions deal­ing with the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment in the Mod­el Law (Arts. 7, 8, 9) and the PILA (Art. 178) appears to be by and large sim­i­lar. Still there are some dis­tinc­tive fea­tures of Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law con­cern­ing the issues high­light­ed below.

For­mal requirements

Mir­ror­ing Arti­cle II(1) of the New York Con­ven­tion (the ​‘NYC’), the Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law requires that arbi­tra­tion agree­ments be con­clud­ed ​‘in writ­ing’. How­ev­er, this is not an over­ly strict stan­dard. Already under the old ver­sion of Arti­cle 178(1) PILA, the ​‘writ­ing’ require­ment was deemed to be com­plied with if the agree­ment could be ​‘evi­denced by a text’ with­out any strict require­ment of a per­son­al sig­na­ture.²³ This has not changed. The revised Arti­cle 178(1) PILA²⁴ mere­ly mod­ernised the statu­to­ry lan­guage, no longer refer­ring to ​‘telegram, telex, tele­copi­er’ as exam­ples of means of communication.

The Swiss Fed­er­al Court has recent­ly clar­i­fied that the for­mal require­ments in Arti­cle 178(1) PILA are con­sid­ered as con­gru­ent for all intents and pur­pos­es with those of the NYC. How­ev­er, in light of the dif­fer­ences in the spe­cif­ic word­ing of the PILA and the NYC, the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of such opin­ion remains the sub­ject of legal debate, some com­men­ta­tors insist­ing that Arti­cle 178(1) PILA should allow a more flex­i­ble approach.²⁵

The law applic­a­ble to the sub­stan­tive valid­i­ty of arbi­tra­tion agreements

As for the law applic­a­ble to the sub­stan­tive valid­i­ty of arbi­tra­tion agree­ments, the 2021 reform has not led­nto any mod­i­fi­ca­tion. Still the cor­re­spond­ing statu­to­ry approach in Arti­cle 178(2) PILA war­rants high­light­ing as a typ­i­cal fea­ture of Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law:

As regards its sub­stance, the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment shall be valid if it con­forms to the law cho­sen by the par­ties, or to the law applic­a­ble to the dis­pute, in par­tic­u­lar the law gov­ern­ing the main con­tract, or to Swiss law.

Arti­cle 178(2) PILA thus does not itself reg­u­late the sub­stan­tive law require­ments of a valid arbi­tra­tion agree­ment. Rather, the pro­vi­sion is a con­flict of laws rule,²⁶ des­ig­nat­ing, in the alter­na­tive, three dif­fer­ent laws for deter­min­ing the sub­stan­tive valid­i­ty of arbi­tra­tion agree­ments. It suf­fices that the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment be valid under any one of the three, pro­vid­ing the par­ties with max­i­mum flexibility.

This fea­ture of Swiss arbi­tra­tion law is often referred to as the inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised ​‘favorem valid­i­tatis prin­ci­ple’ for arbi­tra­tion agree­ments,²⁷ giv­en that there is no hier­ar­chy between the three alter­na­tive laws for deter­min­ing the sub­stan­tive valid­i­ty of such agree­ments.²⁸ It illus­trates the arbi­tra­tion-friend­ly stance of Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law.

Valid­i­ty of arbi­tra­tion claus­es in a uni­lat­er­al act or in arti­cles of association

The 2021 reform has fur­ther­more express­ly clar­i­fied that uni­lat­er­al arbi­tra­tion claus­es and those con­tained in arti­cles of asso­ci­a­tion are poten­tial­ly valid from the per­spec­tive of Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law.²⁹ The new Arti­cle 178(4) PILA provides:

The pro­vi­sions of this Chap­ter [12] shall apply by anal­o­gy to an arbi­tra­tion clause set out in a uni­lat­er­al legal act or in arti­cles of association.

This pro­vi­sion will facil­i­tate Swiss arbi­tra­tion pro­ceed­ings in par­tic­u­lar in com­pa­ny- and trust-relat­ed mat­ters, as well as in the con­text of inher­i­tance dis­putes. The imple­men­ta­tion of this pro­vi­sion will have to be clar­i­fied by the courts and aca­d­e­m­ic writing.

Inter­pre­ta­tion and scope of arbi­tra­tion agreements

The Swiss Fed­er­al Court applies two dif­fer­ent stan­dards when inter­pret­ing arbi­tra­tion agree­ments, depend­ing on whether the issue at stake is the very exis­tence of such arbi­tra­tion agree­ment (in the sense of an agree­ment, i.e. con­sent, to exclude ordi­nary state court juris­dic­tion in favour of arbi­tra­tion) or rather its objec­tive scope.

Giv­en that the recog­ni­tion of an arbi­tra­tion agree­ment lim­its access to state court jus­tice, which is pro­tect­ed by Arti­cle 6 of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion on Human Rights and the Swiss Con­sti­tu­tion, the Swiss Fed­er­al Court applies a strict stan­dard when analysing whether or not the par­ties indeed agreed (con­sent­ed) to exclude state court juris­dic­tion in favour of arbi­tra­tion.³⁰

It is some­times for­mu­lat­ed that a clear expres­sion of the par­ties’ will is required in this con­text.³¹ What this means is that it is key to deter­mine the par­ties’ con­sent. Such con­sent can be proven by the par­ties’ sub­jec­tive intent but also estab­lished by way of an objec­tive inter­pre­ta­tion of par­ty behav­iour.³² As a con­se­quence, an express oral or writ­ten state­ment is not required under Swiss law. For instance, the Swiss Fed­er­al Court has accept­ed ​‘exten­sions’ of arbi­tra­tion agree­ments to ​‘non-sig­na­to­ries’ in the fol­low­ing sit­u­a­tions: ³³ (i) an assign­ment of claim, assump­tion of debt, or transfer  of con­tract;³⁴ (ii) a third party’s inten­tion­al inter­fer­ence with the per­for­mance of a con­tract in full knowl­edge that the con­tract was sub­ject to arbi­tra­tion;³⁵ and (iii) the con­clu­sion of a con­tract for the ben­e­fit of a third par­ty,³⁶ in which case the third par­ty must respect the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment (unless oth­er­wise stat­ed there­in).³⁷

In this con­text of ​‘exten­sions’ of arbi­tra­tion agree­ments to ​‘non-sig­na­to­ries’, it should be not­ed that the some­what sim­pli­fied for­mal require­ments of Arti­cle 178(1) PILA³⁸ need to be met only once — when the ini­tial arbi­tra­tion agree­ment is con­clud­ed — and by the ini­tial par­ties.³⁹ If the for­mal require­ments were ini­tial­ly met, they need not be met again by oth­ers that are con­sid­ered to be bound by the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment sub­se­quent­ly, or that may par­tic­i­pate in arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings.⁴⁰ Whether a third par­ty not men­tioned in the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment is bound by such arbi­tra­tion agree­ment is thus a sub­stan­tive mat­ter of con­sent, which is to be deter­mined under the laws applic­a­ble to the sub­stan­tive valid­i­ty of arbi­tra­tion agree­ments pur­suant to Arti­cle 178(2) PILA, irre­spec­tive of the fact that such third par­ty may not have been able to com­ply itself with the for­mal require­ments estab­lished by Arti­cle 178(1) PILA.⁴¹

Final­ly, once it has been ascer­tained that an arbi­tra­tion agree­ment indeed ​‘exists’, and that the rel­e­vant (ini­tial) par­ties chose to exclude state court juris­dic­tion in favour of arbi­tra­tion, the pre­cise scope of such arbi­tra­tion agree­ment may still need to be deter­mined as to the mat­ters cov­ered. In this con­text, the Swiss Fed­er­al Court relax­es the stan­dard of inter­pre­ta­tion. When deter­min­ing the objec­tive scope of arbi­tra­tion agree­ments, it inter­prets the word­ing of such agree­ments wide­ly.⁴² This is because, accord­ing to the Swiss Fed­er­al Court, it must be pre­sumed that the par­ties want­ed an arbi­tral tri­bunal to have com­pre­hen­sive juris­dic­tion to deal with the entirety  of their dis­pute, irre­spec­tive of whether the par­ties expressed that inten­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly clear­ly in their arbi­tra­tion agree­ment.⁴³

3. The com­po­si­tion of the arbi­tral tribunal

The PILA pro­vi­sions relat­ing to the com­po­si­tion of the arbi­tral tri­bunal are amongst those most thor­ough­ly revised in 2021, although the goal was pri­mar­i­ly to ren­der them more acces­si­ble, and to cod­i­fy the case law of the Swiss Fed­er­al Court, rather than to intro­duce major modifications.

A com­par­i­son with the cor­re­spond­ing rules in the Mod­el Law (Arts. 10 – 15) reveals again a dif­fer­ence in style rather than fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ences as to sub­stance. While con­tain­ing large­ly sim­i­lar rules, the Swiss approach appears slight­ly more stream­lined as explained below.

Clar­i­fi­ca­tions to the appoint­ment and replace­ment of arbitrators

The over­ar­ch­ing approach to the appoint­ment and replace­ment of arbi­tra­tors remains the recog­ni­tion of par­ty auton­o­my in Arti­cle 179(1)(1) PILA⁴⁴. The 2021 reform added default rules in Arti­cle 179(1)(2) PILA,⁴⁵ in case the par­ties have not exer­cised their auton­o­my. The revised Arti­cle 179(2) PILA⁴⁶ fur­ther­more clar­i­fies the pos­si­ble recourse, if so required, to Swiss state courts. In order to pro­vide max­i­mum flex­i­bil­i­ty, any com­pe­tent court in Switzer­land can be asked to assist with the appoint­ment of arbi­tra­tors. Swiss courts will assist, as they have always done, unless the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment is, upon a sum­ma­ry exam­i­na­tion, con­sid­ered to be inex­is­tent (Art. 179(3) PILA⁴⁷). The new Arti­cle 179(4)⁴⁸ PILA sets out the pro­ce­dure to be adopt­ed by the com­pe­tent court, and the new Arti­cle 179(5) PILA⁴⁹ estab­lish­es a court appoint­ment mech­a­nism to deal with mul­ti-par­ty dis­putes in order to ensure equal influ­ence of all par­ties on the appoint­ment of the arbi­tral tribunal.

Final­ly, the new Arti­cle 179(6) PILA⁵⁰ express­ly oblig­es prospec­tive as well as appoint­ed arbi­tra­tors to mon­i­tor and dis­close poten­tial conflicts.

Chal­lenge

While the grounds for a poten­tial chal­lenge of arbi­tra­tors in Arti­cle 180 PILA⁵¹ remained unaf­fect­ed by the 2021 reform, a new pro­vi­sion clar­i­fies the rel­e­vant pro­ce­dure. Arti­cle 180a now provides:

(1) Unless the par­ties have agreed oth­er­wise and if the arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings are not yet con­clud­ed, the request for chal­lenge shall be addressed, with rea­sons and in writ­ing, to the chal­lenged arbi­tra­tor and noti­fied to the oth­er arbi­tra­tors with­in 30 days of the request­ing par­ty becom­ing aware, or exer­cis­ing due dili­gence ought to have become aware, of the ground for challenge.

(2) The request­ing par­ty may, with­in 30 days of the sub­mis­sion of the request for chal­lenge, chal­lenge the arbi­tra­tor before the state court. The deci­sion of the state court is final.

(3) Unless the par­ties have agreed oth­er­wise, dur­ing the chal­lenge pro­ce­dure the arbi­tral tri­bunal may pro­ceed with the arbi­tra­tion and ren­der an award, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the chal­lenged arbitrator.

In line with pre­vi­ous case law,⁵² Arti­cle 180a PILA stip­u­lates that the start of the time-lim­it for chal­leng­ing an arbi­tra­tor is to be deter­mined objec­tive­ly (‘exer­cis­ing due dili­gence ought to have become aware’). Remain­ing will­ful­ly igno­rant would be abu­sive and amount to a vio­la­tion of the prin­ci­ple of good faith.

While Arti­cle 180a(1) PILA con­cerns sce­nar­ios in which the ground for chal­lenge is dis­cov­ered, or should have been dis­cov­ered, dur­ing the arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings, the new Arti­cle 190a(1)© PILA adds an extra­or­di­nary rem­e­dy (‘revi­sion’) in case such ground is dis­cov­ered after the con­clu­sion of the arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings, pro­vid­ed no oth­er rem­e­dy, in par­tic­u­lar a chal­lenge pur­suant to Arti­cle 190(2)(a) PILA, is avail­able:⁵³

A par­ty may request the revi­sion of an award: … © if, despite hav­ing exer­cised due dili­gence, a ground for chal­lenge under Arti­cle 180(1)© was not dis­cov­ered until after the con­clu­sion of the arbi­tra­tion and no oth­er rem­e­dy is available.

Removal

Final­ly, a new pro­vi­sion, Arti­cle 180b(1) PILA, deals with the removal of arbi­tra­tors and pro­vides that arbi­tra­tors may be removed by the par­ties joint­ly, with­out estab­lish­ing a spe­cif­ic for­mal requirement:

Any arbi­tra­tor may be removed by agree­ment of the parties.

It should be not­ed that Arti­cle 180b(1) PILA only con­cerns the arbi­tra­tors’ func­tion (‘Amt’), of which they may be relieved by the par­ties with­out restric­tions. The ter­mi­na­tion of the arbi­tra­tor ​‘con­tract’,⁵⁴ with its effect in par­tic­u­lar on the arbi­tra­tors’ remu­ner­a­tion, is a sep­a­rate issue.

Final­ly, Arti­cle 180b(2) PILA⁵⁵ now pro­vides for a mech­a­nism to uni­lat­er­al­ly remove an arbi­tra­tor, with the assis­tance of state courts, in case of extra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances of incapacity.

## 4. Arbi­tral proceedings

### The juris­dic­tion of arbi­tral tri­bunals and par­al­lel proceedings

As under most mod­ern arbi­tra­tion laws, Swiss-seat­ed arbi­tral tri­bunals are explic­it­ly autho­rised to decide on their own juris­dic­tion, sub­ject to final review by the state courts at the chal­lenge or enforce­ment stage. The gen­er­al rule under Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law con­cern­ing the arbi­tral tribunal’s author­i­ty to decide on its juris­dic­tion (cor­re­spond­ing to Art. 16 Mod­el Law) is Arti­cle 186 PILA,⁵⁶ which has not been altered by the 2021 reform.

Arti­cle 186(1bis) PILA is there­by a unique fea­ture of Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law. It clar­i­fies that an arbi­tral tri­bunal is not expect­ed to enter­tain lis ali­bi pen­dens con­sid­er­a­tions in case a state court is seized also, either pri­or to the ini­ti­a­tion of arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings or sub­se­quent­ly. Accord­ing to its word­ing,⁵⁷ the pro­vi­sion applies irre­spec­tive of whether the state court in ques­tion is in Switzer­land or abroad.⁵⁸ Yet in case a Swiss court is seized pri­or to an arbi­tral tri­bunal, it has to be borne in mind that it would ulti­mate­ly be the Swiss Fed­er­al Court that deter­mines, for the pur­pos­es of Swiss law, the arbi­tral tribunal’s juris­dic­tion (Art. 190(2)(b) PILA). Against this back­ground, a tri­bunal will have to care­ful­ly assess whether to enter­tain lis ali­bi pen­dens con­sid­er­a­tions notwith­stand­ing the fact that Arti­cle 186(1bis) PILA would seem to autho­rise the tri­bunal to sim­ply ignore the pend­ing state court pro­ceed­ings. The risk of hav­ing the award set aside will often pro­vide ​‘sub­stan­tial rea­sons to stay the [arbi­tral] pro­ceed­ings’ (Art. 186(1bis) PILA).

Swiss state courts, on the oth­er hand, that are seized with an action that appears to fall under an arbi­tra­tion agree­ment, shall decline juris­dic­tion pur­suant to Arti­cle 7 PILA, irre­spec­tive of whether arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings are already pend­ing. In this con­text, a Swiss court would only make a sum­ma­ry assess­ment of the tribunal’s juris­dic­tion (as the final juris­dic­tion deci­sion for the pur­pos­es of Swiss law in any event  belongs to the Swiss Fed­er­al Court⁵⁹) unless the issue is one of arbi­tra­bil­i­ty or the very exis­tence of an arbi­tra­tion agree­ment.⁶⁰ Unlike in Swiss domes­tic arbi­tra­tion (Art. 372(2) Swiss CCP), how­ev­er,⁶¹ state courts are not required by statute to defer, on the basis of lis ali­bi pen­dens con­sid­er­a­tions, to pend­ing Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings.⁶²

Arti­cle 181 PILA clar­i­fies the point in time at which the arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings are ​‘pend­ing’:

The arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings shall be pend­ing from the time when a par­ty sub­mits a claim with the arbi­tra­tor or arbi­tra­tors des­ig­nat­ed in the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment or, in the absence of such des­ig­na­tion, from the time when a par­ty ini­ti­ates the pro­ce­dure for the con­sti­tu­tion of the arbi­tral tribunal.

In prac­tice, Arti­cle 181 PILA has an impor­tant (albeit lim­it­ed) role to play where a par­ty seeks to uni­lat­er­al­ly inter­rupt the run­ning of lim­i­ta­tion peri­ods, as the exact sub­stan­tive effect of ini­ti­at­ing arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings on lim­i­ta­tion peri­ods depends on the applic­a­ble sub­stan­tive law. If Swiss law applies to the sub­stance of the claim, the sub­mis­sion of a state­ment of claim or defense to an arbi­tral tri­bunal indeed inter­rupts the lim­i­ta­tion peri­od (pur­suant to Art. 135 No. 2 Swiss Code of Oblig­a­tions). How­ev­er, such sub­mis­sion of a ​‘state­ment of claim’ requires that the claimant actu­al­ly spec­i­fies its claim. This is more than what would suf­fice pro­ce­du­ral­ly under Arti­cle 181 PILA, i.e. to get the pro­ceed­ings ​‘pend­ing’, because for Arti­cle 181 PILA to apply it would suf­fice to mere­ly ini­ti­ate the pro­ce­dure for the con­sti­tu­tion of the tri­bunal (no spec­i­fi­ca­tion of the claim required).⁶³

Final­ly, Arti­cle 178(3) PILA express­ly recog­nis­es, in line with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, the doc­trine of separability:

The valid­i­ty of an arbi­tra­tion agree­ment can­not be con­test­ed on the grounds that the main con­tract may not be valid or that the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment relates to a dis­pute that has not yet arisen.

Inter­im mea­sures and pre­lim­i­nary orders

Swiss-seat­ed arbi­tral tri­bunals are autho­rised, sub­ject to the par­ties’ agree­ment to the con­trary, to issue pro­vi­sion­al and con­ser­va­to­ry mea­sures. The 2006 revi­sion of the Mod­el Law intro­duced a rather ver­bose reg­u­la­tion of inter­im mea­sures and pre­lim­i­nary orders by arbi­tral tri­bunals (Arts. 17 – 17J). Arti­cle 183 PILA remains con­sid­er­ably more succinct:

(1) Unless the par­ties have agreed oth­er­wise, the arbi­tral tri­bunal may, at the request of a par­ty, order pro­vi­sion­al or con­ser­va­to­ry measures.

(2) If the par­ty con­cerned does not vol­un­tar­i­ly com­ply with the mea­sure so ordered, the arbi­tral tri­bunal or a par­ty may request the assis­tance of the state court; such court shall apply its own law.

(3) The arbi­tral tri­bunal or the state court may make the order of pro­vi­sion­al or con­ser­va­to­ry mea­sures con­di­tion­al on the pro­vi­sion of appro­pri­ate security.

The 2021 reform of this pro­vi­sion new­ly intro­duced only the inde­pen­dent pos­si­bil­i­ty of a par­ty to ​‘request the assis­tance of the state court’ in case of non-com­pli­ance by the oppos­ing par­ty (Art. 183(2) PILA), with­out the arbi­tral tri­bunal hav­ing to autho­rise such request.

The con­duct of arbi­tral proceedings

The orga­ni­za­tion of arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings is the tribunal’s task, unless the par­ties have specif­i­cal­ly agreed on the arbi­tral pro­ce­dure. The pro­vi­sions of the Mod­el Law on the con­duct of arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings (Arts. 18 – 27) are also much more detailed than the cor­re­spond­ing pro­vi­sions of Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law. The lat­ter rests on two pil­lars, name­ly par­ty auton­o­my and, in case the par­ties have not exer­cised it, the arbi­tral tribunal’s author­i­ty to deter­mine the pro­ce­dure as it sees fit (Art. 182(1) and (2) PILA):

(1) The par­ties may deter­mine the arbi­tral pro­ce­dure, direct­ly or by ref­er­ence to arbi­tra­tion rules; they may also sub­mit it to a pro­ce­dur­al law of their choice.

(2) If the par­ties have not deter­mined the pro­ce­dure, the arbi­tral tri­bunal shall deter­mine it to the extent nec­es­sary, either direct­ly or by ref­er­ence to a law or to arbi­tra­tion rules

Arti­cle 182(3) PILA pro­vides that the tribunal’s dis­cre­tion is lim­it­ed by the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of equal treat­ment and the par­ties’ right to be heard in adver­sar­i­al pro­ceed­ings.⁶⁴ The 2021 reform has not mod­i­fied this straight­for­ward approach that has with­stood the test of time.

One fur­ther pro­vi­sion deals with the tak­ing of evi­dence, name­ly Arti­cle 184 PILA:

(1) The arbi­tral tri­bunal shall con­duct the tak­ing of evi­dence itself.

(2) If the assis­tance of state judi­cial author­i­ties is required for the tak­ing of evi­dence, the arbi­tral tri­bunal, or a par­ty with the con­sent of the arbi­tral tri­bunal, may request the assis­tance of the state court at the seat of the arbitration.

(3) The state court shall apply its own law. Upon request, it may apply or con­sid­er oth­er forms of procedure.

The last para­graph, which was added in 2021 for clar­i­fi­ca­tion pur­pos­es, aims at increas­ing the flex­i­bil­i­ty of the sup­port pro­vid­ed by Swiss courts, as Swiss courts can apply forms of pro­ce­dure oth­er than their own.

5. Arbi­tral Awards

The mak­ing of an award and the ter­mi­na­tion of the proceedings

Under Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law, the modal­i­ties of the mak­ing of arbi­tral awards (see Arts. 28 – 33 Mod­el Law) are also left to the par­ties’ agree­ment or the tribunal’s deter­mi­na­tion. Arti­cle 187 PILA con­tains a stan­dard con­flict of laws rule con­cern­ing the law applic­a­ble to the sub­stance of the dis­pute, enshrin­ing yet again par­ty auton­o­my as the guid­ing prin­ci­ple of Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law:

(1) The arbi­tral tri­bunal shall decide the dis­pute accord­ing to the rules of law cho­sen by the par­ties or, in the absence there­of, accord­ing to the rules of law with which the dis­pute has the clos­est connection.

(2) The par­ties may autho­rise the arbi­tral tri­bunal to decide ex aequo et bono.

Arti­cle 187 PILA is the exclu­sive con­flict of laws rule con­cern­ing the applic­a­ble sub­stan­tive law in Swiss arbi­tra­tion law. Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law thus fol­lows the voie directe approach,⁶⁵ i.e. it des­ig­nates itself, via the con­flict rule in Arti­cle 187 PILA, the applic­a­ble law, rather than refer­ring to con­flict of laws rules of some domes­tic law.⁶⁶ Or, in oth­er words, the Swiss arbi­tra­tor deter­mines the applic­a­ble sub­stan­tive law direct­ly, rather than choos­ing direct­ly only the applic­a­ble con­flict of laws rules (as pre­scribed by Art. 28(2) Mod­el Law), which in turn point to the applic­a­ble sub­stan­tive law (voie indi­recte).

A fur­ther speci­fici­ty of Swiss law is Arti­cle 188 PILA, autho­riz­ing par­tial awards (Teilentscheid):

Unless the par­ties have agreed oth­er­wise, the arbi­tral tri­bunal may ren­der par­tial awards.

How­ev­er, only sub­stan­tive deci­sions deal­ing final­ly with a sep­a­ra­ble part of the over­all claim, or deal­ing with an indi­vid­ual claim while oth­er claims remain unde­cid­ed for the time being, are con­sid­ered par­tial awards in the sense of Arti­cle 188 PILA, i.e. par­tial awards stric­to sen­su accord­ing to the case law of the Swiss Fed­er­al Court.⁶⁷ Par­tial awards have res judi­ca­ta effect accord­ing to the gen­er­al rules.⁶⁸

Notwith­stand­ing this, sep­a­rate deci­sions on pre­lim­i­nary issues, such as juris­dic­tion, lia­bil­i­ty, applic­a­ble law, statute of lim­i­ta­tions, etc. are also pos­si­ble in Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings.⁶⁹ For instance, Arti­cle 186(3) PILA clar­i­fies that an ​‘arbi­tral tri­bunal shall, in gen­er­al, decide on its juris­dic­tion by means of a pre­lim­i­nary award’.

In dis­tinc­tion to par­tial awards, such pre­lim­i­nary awards (​‘Vor- or Zwis­ch­enentscheid’) do not have the nor­mal res judi­ca­ta effect out­side the respec­tive pro­ceed­ings. Still, the arbi­tral tri­bunal hav­ing issued such pre­lim­i­nary awards is bound by them and by its opin­ions voiced there­in.⁷⁰ Pre­lim­i­nary awards may be chal­lenged only on lim­it­ed grounds (Art. 190(3) PILA).

Arti­cle 189 PILA fur­ther­more con­tains rel­e­vant for­mal­i­ties for arbi­tral awards,⁷¹ and a new pro­vi­sion was intro­duced in 2021 to deal with cor­rec­tions of an award (Art. 189a PILA):

(1) Unless the par­ties have agreed oth­er­wise, either par­ty may, with­in 30 days of the noti­fi­ca­tion of the award, request the arbi­tral tri­bunal to cor­rect any cler­i­cal or com­pu­ta­tion­al errors in the award, to inter­pret cer­tain parts of the award or to issue a sup­ple­ment to the award on claims which were raised in the arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings but not dealt with in the award. With­in the same time lim­it, the arbi­tral tri­bunal may, on its own ini­tia­tive, cor­rect, inter­pret or sup­ple­ment the award.

(2) The request does not sus­pend the time lim­its for recourse against the award. With respect to the cor­rect­ed, inter­pret­ed or sup­ple­ment­ed part of the award, the time lim­it for recourse shall start anew.

Chal­lenge

Awards gov­erned by the PILA may nor­mal­ly be chal­lenged only on the basis of lim­it­ed grounds set out in Arti­cle 190 PILA.⁷² As already high­light­ed above, the Swiss Fed­er­al Court serves as the ​‘sole judi­cial author­i­ty for recourse against an award’ (Arti­cle 191 PILA), thus serv­ing as one-stop shop for recourse against arbi­tral awards.⁷³

Unlike Arti­cle 34 of the Mod­el Law (the pro­vi­sion on gen­er­al recourse against arbi­tral awards), Arti­cle 190(2)(d) PILA specif­i­cal­ly refers to the equal treat­ment of the par­ties and their right to be heard in adver­sar­i­al pro­ceed­ings. The promi­nence of these prin­ci­ples can be explained by the fact that they serve, as dis­cussed above, as main guide­posts for arbi­tral tri­bunals when the lat­ter are to con­duct the arbi­tral pro­ceed­ings, pro­vid­ed the par­ties have not made more spe­cif­ic arrange­ments (Art. 182(3) PILA). Whether there is a dif­fer­ence as to the sub­stance will depend on the Mod­el Law juris­dic­tion concerned.

While the gen­er­al archi­tec­ture of this pro­vi­sion and the grounds for chal­lenge remained unal­tered with the 2021 reform, some clar­i­fi­ca­tions and amend­ments were made con­cern­ing the pro­ce­dure to follow.

First, to make Chap­ter 12 as clear and user-friend­ly as pos­si­ble, Arti­cle 190(4) PILA repeats the time lim­it for a chal­lenge – also stip­u­lat­ed in Arti­cle 100(1) of the Fed­er­al Supreme Court Act of 17 June 2005 (the ​‘FSCA’) (Bun­des­gerichts­ge­setz):

The time lim­it for the chal­lenge is 30 days from the noti­fi­ca­tion of the award.

It is impor­tant to high­light that ​‘noti­fi­ca­tion’ does not nec­es­sar­i­ly require for­mal ser­vice.⁷⁴ Pur­suant to Arti­cle 189(1) PILA, awards are to be ​‘ren­dered in con­for­mi­ty with the rules of pro­ce­dure and in the form agreed upon by the par­ties’, which can include an oral ren­der­ing of the award. The Ger­man ver­sion of the PILA refers to ​‘Eröff­nung’ of the award, not ​‘Zustel­lung’. The French ver­sion refers more gen­er­al­ly to the ​‘com­mu­ni­ca­tion de la sen­tence’. In any event, a cour­tesy advance copy of arbi­tral awards, as for instance usu­al­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed by the ICC Court to the par­ties by e‑mail, does not trig­ger the time lim­it in Arti­cle 190(4) PILA.⁷⁵

Sec­ond, as a much-dis­cussed new fea­ture of the 2021 reform, sub­mis­sions to the Swiss Fed­er­al Court in chal­lenge pro­ceed­ings may now be filed in Eng­lish (see Art. 77(2bis) FSCA).⁷⁶ While exhibits in Eng­lish were already accept­ed pre­vi­ous­ly, the new rule per­mits the fil­ing of full briefs in Eng­lish with­out any trans­la­tion. Since the major­i­ty of inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion pro­ceed­ings seat­ed in Switzer­land are con­duct­ed in Eng­lish and may involve par­ties who are not flu­ent in any of the Swiss offi­cial lan­guages (French, Ger­man, and Ital­ian), this amend­ment may help reduce the required time and costs of chal­lenge pro­ceed­ings in some cas­es. On the oth­er hand, it is to be cau­tioned against involv­ing indis­crim­i­nate­ly coun­sel from out­side of Switzer­land to con­duct such chal­lenge pro­ceed­ings. It is to be not­ed that the Swiss Fed­er­al Court ren­ders pro­ce­dur­al orders and deci­sions in one of the Swiss offi­cial lan­guages; coun­sel must there­fore be famil­iar with these lan­guages. In addi­tion, the Swiss Fed­er­al Court con­ducts its pro­ce­dure and decides the mer­its of chal­lenge pro­ceed­ings on the basis of Swiss law; it is there­fore imper­a­tive that coun­sel be well-versed in Swiss law specif­i­cal­ly. Instruct­ing coun­sel only on the basis of his or her gen­er­al com­mand of the Eng­lish lan­guage induces a sig­nif­i­cant risk of con­fu­sion between for­eign law and Swiss law con­cepts, in par­tic­u­lar if such for­eign coun­sel is ​‘well-versed’ only in the ter­mi­nol­o­gy of an Eng­lish lan­guage juris­dic­tion. Final­ly, the require­ments for sub­stan­ti­at­ing grounds for a chal­lenge before the Swiss Fed­er­al Court are high and not eas­i­ly met.⁷⁷

From a sta­tis­ti­cal point of view, the chances of suc­cess for chal­leng­ing Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tral awards remain in any event low (around 8% suc­cess rate).⁷⁸

Waiv­er of recourse

Under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, the par­ties may exclude chal­lenges against arbi­tral awards ex ante. A fur­ther speci­fici­ty of Swiss law, which is not envis­aged in the Mod­el Law, is the pos­si­bil­i­ty for par­ties with­out any link to Switzer­land to ful­ly exclude any recourse against arbi­tral awards pur­suant to Arti­cle 192 PILA.⁷⁹ The pro­vi­sion itself has remained large­ly untouched. The 2021 reform only clar­i­fied the for­mal require­ments by refer­ring to Arti­cle 178(1) PILA.

Arti­cle 192(2) PILA demon­strates that Swiss inter­na­tion­al awards can, by par­ty agree­ment, be trans­formed into for­eign awards. It is the NYC that will then be applied (‘by anal­o­gy’) to their recog­ni­tion and enforce­ment also in Switzerland.

Revi­sion

The 2021 reform has cod­i­fied the Swiss Fed­er­al Court’s case law⁸⁰ for an addi­tion­al and extra­or­di­nary rem­e­dy against arbi­tral awards, the so-called ​‘revi­sion’, where awards are taint­ed by crim­i­nal acts or if sub­stan­tial and rel­e­vant new evi­dence has sur­faced (Art. 190a PILA):

(1) A par­ty may request the revi­sion of an award: (a) if it sub­se­quent­ly dis­cov­ers mate­r­i­al facts or con­clu­sive evi­dence which, despite hav­ing exer­cised due dili­gence, it was unable to invoke in the pre­vi­ous pro­ceed­ings; facts and evi­dence which post­date the award are exclud­ed; (b) if crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings have estab­lished that the award was influ­enced, to the detri­ment of the chal­leng­ing par­ty, by a crime or mis­de­meanour, even in the absence of any con­vic­tion; if crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings can­not be pur­sued, proof can be fur­nished by oth­er means; © if, despite hav­ing exer­cised due dili­gence, a ground for chal­lenge under Arti­cle 180(1)© was not dis­cov­ered until after the con­clu­sion of the arbi­tra­tion and no oth­er rem­e­dy is available.

(2) The request for revi­sion must be filed with­in 90 days of the dis­cov­ery of the ground for revi­sion. Except in cas­es pro­vid­ed for by para­graph 1(b), the right to request revi­sion shall expire ten years from the date on which the award has come into force.

The exist­ing case law of the Swiss Fed­er­al Court regard­ing the revi­sion of arbi­tral awards had been based on Arti­cle 123 FSCA by anal­o­gy.⁸¹ The pur­pose of the 2021 reform was to cod­i­fy that case law, with­out alter­ation. This rem­e­dy is a safe­ty-valve, but although it is now cod­i­fied, we do not con­sid­er that it will gain much (addi­tion­al) trac­tion. To date, it has played only a very minor role in prac­tice.⁸²

Recog­ni­tion and enforce­ment of arbi­tral awards

The recog­ni­tion and enforce­ment of arbi­tral awards is reg­u­lat­ed by Swiss law in accor­dance with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards. For­eign arbi­tral awards are recog­nised and enforced in Switzer­land in accor­dance with the NYC. Arti­cle 194 PILA83 incor­po­rates this treaty into Swiss law by sim­ple reference.

Swiss arbi­tral awards are enforced in Switzer­land as if they were state court judge­ments (Art. 387 with Arts. 335 – 346 Swiss CCP; Art. 190(1) PILA with Arts. 335 – 346 Swiss CCP by analogy).84 In order to facil­i­tate enforce­ment, and pro­vide to author­i­ties, in Switzer­land or abroad, proof that the Swiss court at the seat con­sid­ers the award to be enforce­able in Switzer­land, Arti­cle 193 PILA (by and large unaf­fect­ed by the 2021 reform) pro­vides as follows:

(1) Any par­ty may, at its own expense, deposit a copy of the award with the state court at the seat of the arbitration.

(2) At the request of a par­ty, the state court at the seat of the arbi­tra­tion shall cer­ti­fy the enforce­abil­i­ty of the award.

(3) At the request of a par­ty, the arbi­tral tri­bunal shall cer­ti­fy that the award has been ren­dered in con­for­mi­ty with the pro­vi­sions of this Act; such cer­tifi­cate has the same effect as the deposit of the award.

6. Con­clu­sion

The 2021 reform of the Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law (Chap­ter 12 PILA) fol­lowed a light touch approach. It ren­dered Swiss inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion law more acces­si­ble and trans­par­ent by cod­i­fy­ing case law of the Swiss Fed­er­al Court and by incor­po­rat­ing into Chap­ter 12 PILA mat­ters pre­vi­ous­ly only express­ly reg­u­lat­ed in the Swiss CCP.

The Mod­el Law and the PILA both respect the impor­tance of, and bol­ster, par­ty auton­o­my. Yet they fol­low dif­fer­ent approach­es when reg­u­lat­ing the sit­u­a­tion where par­ties have not exer­cised their auton­o­my. While the Mod­el Law pro­pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of default rules, the PILA main­ly empow­er the arbi­tral tri­bunal to guide the pro­ceed­ings. In the Swiss con­text, and with many high­ly expe­ri­enced arbi­tra­tors avail­able, this approach has served the users of arbi­tra­tion well.