Judgment of the Svea Court of Appeal, 23 January 2015, Case No. T 2454-14
Summary: The appellant sought to set aside an award issued under the ICC Rules and administered by the SCC, alleging, among others, that the arbitration clause was unenforceable. The parties had agreed to arbitrate the dispute under the ICC Rules administered by the SCC, which the appellant maintained was in practice is not possible, as the SCC allegedly lacked the structure to carry out the tasks under the ICC Rules. The Court explained that when an arbitration agreement provides a self-contradicting procedure, the agreement should, to the extent possible, be interpreted in line with the parties’ basic intentions to settle the dispute by arbitration. Further, the Court can disregard the contradicting provision if it’s clear that the remaining of the agreement represents the parties’ actual intentions. Here, the Court deemed the agreement contradictory; yet, nothing indicated that there was a particular purpose for applying ICC Rules to the proceedings, despite the parties concurrently appointing the SCC as the administering institution; nothing indicated that the appellant – which provided the final agreement and to some extent held a superior position in the relationship – had informed its counterparty of the unusual provision, or that the appellant viewed the applicability of ICC Rules of determining importance. Thereby, the Court interpreted that the main purpose of the agreement was that the parties settled their disputes by arbitration, in Stockholm, at theSCC. The Court noted that the SCC agreed to, and also did administer the arbitration, which indicated that the agreement was enforceable, finding the clause to be valid.