Swiss Arbitration Decisions

The case involved a 2006 contract for the delivery of a piece of machinery, which failed the final acceptance test upon delivery in 2007.

While the summary of the facts does not indicate which law governed the contract, there was an ICC arbitration clause with seat in Zürich and in October 2013, arbitrator Gabriel Simon upheld the claim and rejected the counterclaim.

At issue was a dispute between a company in Singapore and a German company that had entered into a contract in 2004 for the delivery of a plant to manufacture dialyzes. A dispute arose between the parties and the German company subsequently resold the plant to a third party.

The case involved a contract between a Hungarian company and its Austrian counterpart for the production of apple juice concentrate and aroma. The contract contained an arbitration clause providing for arbitration in Zürich.

In a dispute between a Tunisian company and a company based in Germany (“Defendant 1”) along with its Tunisian subsidiary (“Defendant 2”) over unpaid invoices, the sole Arbitrator (Raphaëlle Favre Schnyder) found Defendant 1 liable and ordered it to pay the Claimant compensation. She dismissed all the claims against Defendant 2. Defendant 1 appealed the decision to the Federal Tribunal, arguing that the Arbitrator had violated its right to be heard.

A German pasta maker, A.________ and an American distributor, B.________ agreed on an exclusive sales agreement for a number of countries in early 2013. B.________, in turn, initially sold contracted products to a US distributor E.________, but at the end of 2013, apparently concluded an exclusive distribution contract for the United States with D.________.

This very interesting opinion involved a contract governed by Swiss law for the delivery of a production line of certain materials. Ad hoc arbitration proceedings started in Geneva in January 2009. An award was issued and on December 16, 2011 I sent you the English translation of a first decision that the Federal Tribunal took in this matter on May 16, 2011.  A copy of the first decision of the Federal Tribunal is enclosed and you will find here 4A_46/2011.

The case involved an appeal against an award issued in Zurich on September 28, 2008. The Arbitral tribunal (Pierre A. Karrer, Daniel Girsberger and Daniel Wehrli, chairman) denied jurisdiction in part and this was the main object of the appeal. The Court confirmed that an award denying jurisdiction in part is final to that extent, whilst the same award, to the extent that it accepted jurisdiction in part, is an interlocutory award.