Judgment in The Supreme Court, 27 December 2023. Case No. Ä 2885-23

Summary: The Supreme Court ruled on the question of whether there was a barrier to the enforcement of an arbitral award regarding the party's obligation to compensate the counterparty for arbitration costs in the form of arbitrators' fees and fees to an arbitration institution.

The Supreme Court noted that the award stated that, as between the parties, two of the three parties to the arbitration were ordered to pay the final costs of the arbitration. Although it was not expressly stated, the wording was to be understood to entail that there was joint and several liability between two of the parties to the arbitration. This led the Supreme Court to the conclusion that one of the two parties liable to pay costs was obligated to pay the winning party what it had paid of the arbitration costs.

In the present case, the Supreme Court concluded that the award contained a sufficiently clear obligation for the claimant to compensate the respondent for its share of the arbitration costs and that the amount to which the obligation relates can be calculated without difficulty. There is therefore no obstacle to the enforcement of the award. The appeal must therefore be dismissed.