ARBITRATION WORLD A Roundup of Recent Arbitration Decisions of the Swiss Supreme Court by John Magnin (London) and Hendrik Puschmann (London/Frankfurt) INTRODUCTION Swiss arbitration law is contained in the Private International Law Act (the “Act”). Switzerland is not a Model Law jurisdiction, but the relevant provisions of the Act are similar to the Model Law. Swiss case law can hence be salient to the interpretation of Model Law provisions in other countries. The Act envisages “appeals” against arbitral awards made in Switzerland. These are not really appeals; the Act merely provides, at s. 190(2), narrow procedural grounds for setting aside awards: a. the tribunal was not properly constituted; b. the tribunal wrongly accepted or declined jurisdiction; c. the decision went beyond the claim submitted or failed to decide one of the claims; d. the principle of equal treatment or the parties’ right to be heard was not respected; or e. the award is incompatible with public policy (substantive or procedural public policy). These grounds are similar to, but even more restrictive than, those at art. 34(2) of the Model Law. Set-aside applications are heard by the Federal Supreme Court (the “Court”). The Court anonymises arbitration judgments prior to publication, but it is nevertheless often clear who the parties are. Judgments are available in French, German or Italian (Switzerland’s national languages). A private initiative of Swiss lawyers compiles 81