ITALY Law and Practice Contributed by: Luciano Castelli, Gian Paolo Coppola, Claudia Bosco and Matteo Creuso, LCA Studio Legale
the appointment if they lack the skills and knowledge necessary to deliver a fair award. 4.2 Default Procedures According to Article 809 of the CCP, if the arbitration agreement does not specify the number of arbitrators and the parties are unable to agree, the arbitrators will then be three and will be appointed by the president of the court of the seat of the arbitration. The competent court also appoints arbitrators if the appointing authority chosen by the parties to select arbitrators fails to do so. The same provision also applies in case of multiparty arbitrations. 4.3 Court Intervention In addition to what explained in 4.2 Default Proce- dures , the court can also get involved in choosing arbitrators if one party fails to appoint their own (Article 810 of the CCP). In this case, the party who appoint - ed its party-appointed arbitrator can file a motion to the court president. The president will then make the appointment, as long as the arbitration agreement seems valid and does not clearly provide for foreign arbitration. Following the recent update of Article 810 of the CCP, the appointing authority shall ensure criteria of trans - parency, rotation and efficiency in the appointment of the missing arbitrator(s). 4.4 Challenge and Removal of Arbitrators There are three main reasons why a party might chal - lenge an arbitrator in a case (Article 815 of the CCP). • Lack of qualifications – the arbitrator does not have the specific skills or experience that the parties originally agreed upon. • Conflict of interest – the arbitrator has a financial stake in the outcome of the case, or a personal relationship with one of the parties or their lawyers. • Lack of impartiality – while not explicitly stated, impartiality is ensured by allowing the parties to challenge the arbitrators for being related to a party or having ongoing legal disputes with them, for
having assisted or represented a party in a previ - ous phase of the dispute. An important update to Article 815 of the CCP intro - duced by recent civil procedure reform (Cartabia Reform) allows parties to challenge arbitrators for “serious reasons of convenience”. This provides more flexibility in situations where an arbitrator might be perceived as biased but would not meet the tradi - tional tests of conflict of interest or lack of qualifica - tions. While the exact definition of “serious reasons of convenience” is not explicitly defined, it will likely be determined on a case-by-case basis. This means courts will consider the specific circumstances to determine if the reasons are significant enough to lead to replacing the arbitrator. This addition brings the CCP more in line with inter - national arbitration rules, which often have broad clauses for challenging arbitrators due to impartiality concerns. A party cannot challenge an arbitrator they appointed unless they discover grounds to do so after the time of the appointment. Even then, they only have ten days to file a challenge with the court at the arbitration seat, starting from either the appointment date or when they discover the grounds for challenge. The party that appointed the removed arbitrator may choose the substitute. If the arbitrator was chosen by an appointing authority, that authority will be respon - sible for finding a substitute. 4.5 Arbitrator Requirements Upon acceptance of appointment, arbitrators are required to declare any circumstances that might raise doubts about their neutrality or independence. This declaration is mandatory and failure to do so may result in the removal of the arbitrator. The parties have ten days from the acceptance of the arbitrator or the discovery of the undeclared information to request the arbitrator’s removal. According to the rules of professional conduct, a law - yer must not assume the function of arbitrator when they have, or have had in the last two years, profes - sional relations with one of the parties. The same
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