Recent Finnish Supreme Court Case Law in the Arbitration Landscape

Abstract

This chapter is intended to provide the international readership of the Stockholm Arbitration Yearbook insight into the recent Finnish Supreme Court judgments related to arbitration. The three judgments discussed below have clarified what constitutes sufficient grounds for setting arbitral awards aside under Finnish law. The judgments address due process (the Due Process case, KKO 2018:48), the binding effect of arbitration agreements vis-à-vis third parties as guarantors (the Guarantor case, KKO 2019:111) as well as the relationship between arbitration, bankruptcy and property law (the Bankruptcy Estate case, KKO 2019:64). As the judgments involve issues that are likely to arise in many jurisdictions, the authors hope that even non-Finnish readers will benefit from the observations below. Lastly, the chapter also provides a brief update on the possible revision of the Finnish Arbitration Act (1992/967, the ‘FAA’).