SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Simon Gabriel, Axel Buhr, Roxane Schmidgall and Audrey Duffner, GABRIEL Arbitration
GABRIEL Arbitration AG Rämistrasse 6 CH-8001 Zurich Switzerland Tel: +41 44 206 20 80 Fax: +41 44 206 20 81 Email: s.gabriel@gabriel-arbitration.ch Web: www.gabriel-arbitration.ch
1. General 1.1 Prevalence of Arbitration
lating that disputes up to a value of CHF1 million are dealt with in expedited proceedings within six months. The expedited proceedings are additionally chosen by parties for larger disputes when time is of the essence. Moreover, Switzerland promotes efficient international arbitration because an arbitral award that was ren - dered by a tribunal with its seat in Switzerland can only be set aside for very limited reasons, and only the Swiss Federal Tribunal (the highest Swiss judicial authority) is competent to hear such a case. There is even the possibility to exclude any setting-aside proceedings and most of the grounds for requesting a revision (see 11.2 Excluding/Expanding the Scope of Appeal ). Finally, the enacted “revision light” of the Swiss lex arbitri contained in the 12th Chapter of the Private International Law Act (PILA), which entered into force on 1 January 2021, confirmed the distinctively liberal and arbitration-friendly tradition of Switzerland. On the institutional side, the conversion of the former Swiss Chambers’ Arbitration Institution (SCAI) into the Swiss Arbitration Centre and the revision of the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration (the “Swiss Rules”), which entered into force on 1 June 2021, helped to maintain and strengthen Switzerland’s standing as a major arbi - tration venue (see 1.3 Arbitration Institutions ). 1.2 Key Industries Key industries that usually appreciate arbitration as a dispute resolution method are the pharmaceutical industry, the construction industry and commodity
Switzerland is one of the leading places of arbitra - tion worldwide. The local hubs are Geneva (in the French-speaking part of Switzerland) and Zurich (in the German-speaking part of Switzerland). There is also some international arbitration activity in Lausanne (the seat of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS in the French-speaking part of Switzerland), Lugano (in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland), and Basel (a pharmaceutical hub in the German-speaking part of Switzerland). The importance of Switzerland as a place of arbitra - tion stems from Switzerland’s traditional neutrality, its cultural diversity as reflected by the four official languages of the country and, most importantly, the quality and integrity of the legal profession. Switzerland as a place of arbitration is often chosen together with Swiss substantive law because the latter has influenced the making of the laws of some coun - tries in South-Eastern Europe and beyond, the most prominent among them being Türkiye. Swiss sub - stantive law is, therefore, in many cases both neutral and familiar to both parties in a dispute – this being an advantage that few substantive laws have. Other advantages of Swiss substantive law are its flexibility and the high priority of parties’ agreements. Furthermore, Switzerland also has a tradition of effi - ciently administering small and mid-size disputes, with the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration stipu -
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