SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Simon Gabriel, Axel Buhr, Roxane Schmidgall and Audrey Duffner, GABRIEL Arbitration
6.2 Role of Courts ), both in supportive function to international arbitration proceedings. Pursuant to the revised Swiss Civil Procedure Code (CPC), which came into force on 1 January 2025, the Swiss cantons may now designate their commercial courts as competent to specifically decide interna - tional commercial disputes involving one or more foreign parties with an amount in dispute of at least CHF100,000, provided all parties accept the com - mercial court’s jurisdiction (Article 6.4c CPC). These proceedings may be conducted in English (Article 129.2b CPC). It will have to be seen in practice whether the same types of disputes that are currently resolved by means of international arbitration will increasingly be heard before Swiss cantonal commercial courts. International arbitration proceedings in Switzerland are governed by the 12th Chapter of the PILA, which, since the revision in 2021, comprises 24 articles (Arti - cle 176 to Article 194 of the PILA, the so-called Swiss lex arbitri). The PILA is not directly based on the UNCITRAL Mod - el Law on International Commercial Arbitration (the “Model Law”), although it is evident that the drafters of the PILA were aware of the ideas and concepts of the Model Law, and some Swiss scholars even state that the spirit of the Model Law can be recognised in many provisions of the PILA. At the same time, the parties are free to exclude the application of the 12th Chapter of the PILA and instead agree that the provisions of the third part of the CPC apply (Article 176.2 of the PILA). 2.2 Changes to National Law On 1 January 2021, a minor revision of the Swiss inter - national arbitration law (ie, the 12th Chapter of the PILA) (see 1.1 Prevalence of Arbitration ) came into force. 2. Governing Legislation 2.1 Governing Law
Since then, no legal changes have been made to the Swiss international arbitration law.
3. The Arbitration Agreement 3.1 Enforceability
From a formal point of view, the arbitration agreement is required to be evidenced by text (so-called text form, Article 178.1 of the PILA); therefore, arbitration agreements in emails, instant messaging apps, or tel - efax communications are formally valid in Switzerland. In a landmark decision (decision of the Swiss Federal Tribunal No 145 III 199), the Swiss Federal Tribunal confirmed that the text form requirements are con - gruent with those of Article II.2 of the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, New York, 10 June 1958 (the “New York Convention”). It further held that, in line with Article II.2 of the New York Convention, an arbi - tration agreement can bind non-signatories; eg, in a scenario where a non-signatory is involved in the per - formance of an agreement and implicitly declares, by its conduct, that it intends to be party to the arbitration agreement. Similarly, the Swiss Federal Tribunal con - firmed that an arbitration agreement can be implicitly extended and bind a non-signatory without the exten - sion being evidenced by text. From a substantive point of view, the minimal require - ments for an arbitration agreement are as follows: • it provides for an agreed exclusion of the state court jurisdiction in favour of arbitral jurisdiction; • it relates to a defined dispute (eg, “all disputes aris - ing out of or in connection with” a certain contract); and • it details a definable arbitral tribunal. Furthermore, it should be noted from a substantive point of view that an arbitration agreement is also considered valid in Switzerland if it meets the sub - stantive legal requirements of the law chosen by the parties, the law that applies to the merits of the case or Swiss law (Article 178.2 of the PILA; principle of favor validitatis).
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