Announcing a collaboration between ICCA and the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce

This week sees the launch of a new joint initiative aimed at increasing access to arbitral awards of general interest issued under the auspices of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC). Starting this year, a selection of anonymized SCC awards will be published annually in redacted form in the ICCA Yearbook Commercial Arbitration and in the Kluwer Arbitration database.

Users of international arbitration look for transparency and predictability in the application of institutional rules and principles of law. Through this collaboration, SCC and ICCA jointly will be able to share insights from SCC cases that are of interest to the arbitration community at large, while ensuring that the confidentiality of each single case is maintained.

"The publication of arbitral awards is an important step in increasing knowledge about how tribunals approach key issues of relevance for the law governing transborder economic relations and the peaceful settlement of transborder disputes", says Stephan Schill, General Editor ICCA Productions. "It makes visible how arbitral tribunals contribute to shaping transnational law, enables an informed debate about the legitimacy of international arbitration as a transnational justice system, and ultimately leads to better and fairer decision-making."

Awards included in this first 2020 publication stem from the period between May 2016 and November 2019 and include issues of law deemed of interest for a wider circle of practitioners and parties.

"Confidentiality is a key element of international arbitration.  The combined experience of SCC and ICCA teams will enable us to identify the legal issues of relevance, while at the same time safeguard the integrity of the procedure", says SCC Secretary General Annette Magnusson."In a global and transparent world, it is only natural that arbitral institutions follow suit. It is however essential that we can also stay true to our core values of confidentiality."

The SCC regularly publishes practice notes relating to specific features of its procedure, to provide guidance on practice and procedures under its rules. This practice will continue in parallel with the ICCA Yearbook and Kluwer Arbitration database publications.

SCC Practice Notes include for example reports on decisions on challenges against arbitrators, summaries of decisions under the Emergency Arbitrator provisions, SCC practice on prima face decisions on jurisdiction, and the SCC experience of investor-state arbitration.

It has been ICCA’s practice to publish anonymized summaries and excerpts from arbitral awards issued by major arbitral institutes in the Yearbook Commercial Arbitration since the inception of this publication in 1976 with 597 awards published to date. All awards are made available through the Kluwer Arbitration database.

Find more about the Yearbook Commercial Arbitration on Kluwer Arbitration.