Judgment of the Svea Court of Appeal, 24 January 2014, Case No. T 2635-13
Summary: The applicant challenged an SCC arbitral award alleging, among other grounds, a procedural error as the reasons stated in the award were so insipid and brief that they could be equated to no grounds whatsoever having been provided. The Svea Court of Appeal explained that although the Swedish Arbitration Act does not require a tribunal to state the reasons for its decision in the award, according to Art. 36.1 of the SCC Rules, the rules the parties agreed upon, a tribunal shall state the reasons upon which the award is based, unless the parties agree otherwise. So, in this case the award shall state the reasons for the decision. The question is then, what demands with respect to quality can be posed on the reasons. The Svea Court explained that in case NJA 2009 p. 128 the Supreme Court of Sweden decided that a procedural error has occurred only when there is a complete lack of grounds or when the grounds, having regard to the circumstances, must be deemed so incomplete that the situation can be equated to no grounds whatsoever having been provided. The Court noted that in the award the tribunal wrote: “if a particular submission, argument, document or fact is not expressly mentioned or dealt with in this Award, it does not mean that it has been carefully considered by the Tribunal”. The Svea Court found that no procedural error had occurred as the tribunal had provided, irrespective of this statement, in a fully sufficient manner the reasons for its decision.