SWEDEN Trends and Developments Contributed by: Björn Tude, Daniel Waerme, Caroline Gulliksson Dock and Sandra Aljassani, Gernandt & Danielsson
forum other than that specified in the treaty’s own dis - pute resolution provision – in this case, the SCC. The case arose from investments made in Georgia by an investor who held both British and Georgian citi - zenship. When he sought to challenge the treatment of his investments, the UK-Georgia investment treaty directed him to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a forum unavailable to him because ICSID rules bar a dual national from bringing proceedings against a state of which he is also a citizen. He turned to the SCC instead, relying on an MFN clause in the UK-Georgia treaty, which entitles investors to treatment no less favourable than that accorded to investors from third states. A separate treaty between Georgia and the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU) gave investors a choice of forums, expressly including the SCC. Georgia dis - puted jurisdiction. The Supreme Court confirmed that the MFN clause in the UK-Georgia treaty, read in combination with the dispute resolution provision in the Georgia-BLEU treaty, gave the SCC tribunal jurisdiction to hear the case – subject to the condition that the procedural requirements under Article 10 of the BLEU treaty do not preclude jurisdiction. The Supreme Court set out a clear framework on how such questions are to be assessed in future cases, grounded in the rules on treaty interpretation under international law, in particu - lar the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The case was remitted to the Court of Appeal to determine whether those requirements were satisfied. The ruling carries broader significance for investment arbitration more generally. An investor who would oth - erwise have had no route to arbitration against the Georgian state was able to access SCC proceedings through a careful reading of two investment treaties. In confirming that an MFN clause can redirect a dispute from one arbitral institution to another, the Supreme Court expanded rather than restricted the practical reach of investment treaty protection. Critically, the court did so by applying established principles of public international law, not by departing from them. The judgment carries clear precedential value on how MFN clauses in investment treaties should be inter - preted – even though the underlying dispute has been
remitted and the jurisdictional question in this specific case is not yet finally resolved. EU sanctions and arbitrability: Advocate General’s Opinion in Reibel On 26 February 2026, Advocate General Andrea Biondi of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered his opinion in Case C-802/24 (the “Opinion”). The case reached the CJEU via a referral from the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm, which was hearing a challenge to set aside an SCC arbitral award. The referral placed a foundational principle of international arbitration under formal scrutiny: whether disputes involving EU restrictive measures are arbitra - ble, a question that, until now, practitioners had largely treated as settled. The dispute arose from a supply contract between a Belgian company and a Russian importer. EU sanc - tions blocked delivery of the contracted goods fol - lowing a decision by Belgian authorities. An SCC tribunal ordered the Belgian company to repay an advance already paid by the Russian party, finding that the repayment claim fell outside the scope of the so-called no-claims clause under Article 11 of EU Regulation No 833/2014 – a provision that restricts certain claims arising in connection with EU sanctions measures. The set-aside proceedings before the Svea Court of Appeal gave rise to three questions referred to the CJEU: • whether sanctions-related claims are arbitrable; • whether the no-claims clause forms part of EU public policy such that national courts must review compliance on their own motion; and • whether the specific repayment claim falls within the scope of that clause. The first of those questions carried the greatest poten - tial for disruption. It is well established in international arbitration that subject-matter arbitrability is deter - mined broadly: arbitral tribunals may hear disputes touching on competition law, regulatory matters and sanctions, provided they apply the applicable man - datory rules. A contrary answer from the CJEU – one holding that sanctions-related disputes are simply not capable of being resolved by arbitration – would have marked a significant departure from that consensus
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