SPAIN Law and Practice Contributed by: Daniel Jiménez García, SLJ Abogados
1. General 1.1 Prevalence of Arbitration A Market That Has Grown Up
Volumes Institutional volumes bear this out. The Madrid Court of Arbitration ( Centro de Arbitraje y Mediación – CAM) administered 110 arbitrations in 2025, up from 98 in 2024, with an aggregate amount in dispute of approxi - mately EUR755 million and an average case value of EUR7.9 million. Sixty-seven new proceedings were commenced during the year (85 including counter - claims) – the highest figure in recent years. Com - mentators reviewing 2025 have described Madrid as consolidating its position as an emerging arbitration hub, supported by institutional reform and a legislative shift in favour of resolving commercial disputes before going to court. 1.2 Key Industries Where the Work Is Energy, construction and infrastructure remain the mainstays. Corporate and M&A disputes – typically price adjustment, earn-out and warranty claims aris - ing out of share purchase agreements – have grown quickly, and insurance and engineering disputes are now equally prominent. CIIAM’s 2025 caseload was led by the corporate, insurance and engineering sec - tors, each accounting for 18.75% of cases, followed by construction and professional services at 12.5% each, with sports, energy and banking and finance The common thread is contractual complexity spread across borders. Long-duration contracts with multi - ple counterparties, technical performance obligations and staged payment mechanisms generate disputes that require a specialist decision-maker rather than a generalist judge. Confidentiality also matters com - mercially in these sectors, particularly in M&A and insurance work. Energy Transition making up the balance. Why These Sectors? Energy deserves separate mention. Spain’s renewa - bles build-out has produced a steady flow of com - mercial arbitrations concerning power purchase agreements (PPAs), engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts, grid connection and supply chain failures, alongside the well-known leg - acy of investor-state claims arising from the 2010–14 reforms to the renewables remuneration regime. It is
International arbitration is now the default mechanism for resolving high-value cross-border commercial dis - putes involving Spanish parties. Multinational compa - nies and Spanish groups with international partners agree arbitration clauses in their international con - tracts, and the practice has spread well beyond the largest transactions into mid-market work. Litigation before the ordinary courts remains the norm for purely domestic, lower-value disputes, but that is a question of cost rather than a lack of confidence in arbitration. Three Distinct Uses Arbitration is used in Spain in three ways, and it is worth keeping them separate: • first, as the chosen method of dispute resolution in international contracts – the most common driver; • second, with Madrid as the seat, particularly where one party is Ibero-American and the parties want a neutral European seat that operates in Spanish; and • third, as an enforcement jurisdiction for foreign awards against assets located in Spain. The Ibero-American Dimension The Ibero-American angle is what genuinely differ - entiates the Spanish market. Spanish is the working language, Spanish counsel are familiar with civil law systems across Latin America and the institutional infrastructure has been built deliberately around that connection. The alliance signed in April 2025 between the Madrid International and Ibero-American Arbitra - tion Centre ( Centro Internacional e Iberoamericano de Arbitraje de Madrid – CIIAM) and CAM Santiago of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce, under which CAM Santiago joined with the same status as the found - ing courts, is the clearest expression of that strategy. CIIAM has since signed a protocol with the Span - ish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Spanish and Ibero-American Arbitration Club to promote the use of Spanish in international arbitration, building on the Manifesto for the Use of Spanish in Arbitration it has championed since 2025.
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