Zurich as a seat of international arbitration

The legal framework: Chapter 12 PILA after the 2021 reform

International arbitration in Switzerland is governed by Chapter 12 of the Federal Act on Private International Law (PILA), which entered into force together with the rest of the Act on 1 January 1989.¹ The chapter applies to arbitrations with their seat in Switzerland if at least one party had neither its domicile, its habitual residence nor its seat in Switzerland when the arbitration agreement was concluded.² Domestic arbitrations are governed by Part 3 of the CPC, although the parties may opt out of the one regime and into the other by an express declaration.³ Chapter 12 has always been brief. It contains fewer than twenty articles and leaves the conduct of the proceedings largely to the parties, the chosen rules and the tribunal. Its brevity and liberality were a main reason why Swiss seats became so popular in the decades after 1989.

The Federal Assembly adopted a revision of Chapter 12 on 19 June 2020, and the revised text entered into force on 1 January 2021, the first substantial amendment in more than thirty years.⁴ The revision codified the case law of the Federal Supreme Court on several points and introduced a limited number of real innovations. The time for determining whether the international regime applies is now the conclusion of the arbitration agreement and no longer the commencement of the proceedings. An arbitration agreement is valid as to form if it is made in writing or in any other manner that can be evidenced by text.⁵ Where the parties have not designated the seat or have left the appointment mechanism incomplete, the state court first seised may appoint arbitrators, which prevents a deadlock that could formerly frustrate a defective clause.⁶

Two further innovations matter particularly for Zurich. The first is the assistance of Swiss courts to arbitral tribunals seated abroad and to the parties to such proceedings. Under Article 185a PILA a foreign tribunal or a party to a foreign arbitration may ask the state court at the place where a provisional measure is to be enforced, or where evidence is to be taken, for assistance.⁷ Since many assets relevant to international arbitrations are held in Zurich bank accounts, the Zurich courts have become a natural address for such requests. The second innovation is linguistic. The Federal Supreme Court Act now allows written submissions in proceedings concerning arbitral awards to be filed in English. Before 2021 every setting-aside application had to be written in German, French or Italian, which added cost and delay to challenges brought by foreign parties.⁸ The revision also codified the remedies of correction, interpretation and supplementation of awards, each to be requested within thirty days, and the duty of a party to raise procedural objections promptly on pain of forfeiting them.⁹

Institutions: from the chambers of commerce to the Swiss Arbitration Centre

Institutional arbitration in Switzerland grew out of the chambers of commerce. The Zurich Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1873 on the initiative of the Zurich stock exchange association and known under its present name since 1919, administered arbitrations under its own rules for much of the twentieth century.¹⁰ The same was true of the chambers in Geneva, Basel, Bern, Lugano and Neuchâtel. In 2004 the chambers of Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano, Neuchâtel and Zurich replaced their separate rules with the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration and created a common body to administer them, which became known as the Swiss Chambers’ Arbitration Institution (SCAI).¹¹ The Swiss Rules were revised in 2012.¹²

In 2021 the institutional landscape changed again. At the end of May 2021 SCAI was transformed into the Swiss Arbitration Centre Ltd, a company in which the Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA) became the majority shareholder while the chambers of commerce remained shareholders. A revised version of the Swiss Rules entered into force on 1 June 2021, with refined provisions on multi-party and multi-contract proceedings, paperless filing and remote hearings.¹³ The board of the Centre consists of four members nominated by ASA and three nominated by the chambers of commerce, which today include Basel, Bern, Central Switzerland, Geneva, Neuchâtel, Ticino and Zurich.¹⁴ The Zurich Chamber of Commerce therefore no longer administers cases itself. It participates in governance and promotes the Centre among its members.

The Centre’s rules have developed in directions that reflect the needs of a financial centre. The expedited procedure, which applies by default to smaller cases and aims at a final award within six months, has become one of its most used features. On 1 July 2025 supplemental Swiss Rules for trust, estate and foundation disputes entered into force, addressing a field in which Zurich trustees, family offices and private banks have a direct interest.¹⁵ The 2021 revision of the PILA had prepared the ground for such disputes by recognising arbitration clauses contained in unilateral instruments, such as trust deeds and articles of association.¹⁶ The chapter on family offices and trusts in Part H describes the structures that these rules are designed to serve.

Zurich as a seat in figures

Reliable figures for arbitrations seated in a particular Swiss city are hard to obtain, because ad hoc proceedings and cases administered by foreign institutions are not reported centrally. The institutional statistics nevertheless give a clear picture. Among the 1,283 cases accepted under the Swiss Rules between 2004 and 2020, Zurich was the seat in 44 per cent, Geneva in 38 per cent and Lugano in 10 per cent. In 2020, when 83 new cases were submitted, the Zurich share rose to 45 per cent against 28 per cent for Geneva and 14 per cent for Lugano. English was the language of 70 per cent of all cases over the period.¹⁷ These figures confirm what practitioners had long observed: for institutional commercial arbitration under the Swiss Rules, Zurich is the leading seat, with Geneva a close second and Lugano serving the Italian-speaking market.

The Swiss Arbitration Centre registered 100 new cases in 2023, of which 78 per cent were international. English was used in 65 per cent of cases, German in 18 per cent, French in 15 per cent and Italian in 2 per cent. Banking and finance accounted for 14 per cent of arbitrations and commodity mining and trading for 11 per cent.¹⁸ In 2024 the Centre again registered 100 cases, with parties from 37 countries and an international share of 82 per cent, and 41 per cent of the cases were conducted under the expedited procedure.¹⁹ For 2025 the Centre reported a record of 125 new cases, an increase of a quarter over the preceding year, with 77 per cent international cases, a doubling of emergency relief applications to six and ten new mediation cases.²⁰

The figures of the International Chamber of Commerce point in the same direction for Switzerland as a whole. In 2024 Switzerland was the third most frequently chosen country of seat for ICC arbitrations, with 83 cases, behind the United Kingdom with 96 and France with 91. Swiss law was the third most frequently chosen governing law, applied in 60 cases.²¹ For 2023 the ICC had ranked Switzerland third as a seat, Swiss law second as governing law and Swiss nationals third among arbitrators. Commentators estimate that more than a thousand international arbitrations begin in Switzerland every year once ad hoc and other institutional cases are included.²² Zurich’s share of these cases cannot be quantified precisely. Its strength lies in disputes involving German-speaking parties, banking and insurance, corporate transactions and industrial supply contracts, where Swiss substantive law and a Zurich seat are often chosen together.

Setting aside before the Federal Supreme Court

The most important procedural reason for choosing a Swiss seat is the limited and fast review of awards. Under Article 191 PILA the Federal Supreme Court is the sole judicial authority for challenges against international awards rendered in Switzerland. No cantonal court intervenes. Article 190 lists the grounds exhaustively: improper constitution of the tribunal, a wrong decision on jurisdiction, a decision beyond or short of the claims submitted, a violation of equal treatment or of the right to be heard, and incompatibility with public policy. Revision on the grounds listed in Article 190a remains possible within ninety days of discovering the relevant ground.²³ Parties none of which has its domicile, habitual residence or seat in Switzerland may exclude the challenge entirely by an express agreement, in which case the New York Convention applies by analogy if the award is to be enforced in Switzerland.²⁴

The statistics of the Federal Supreme Court explain the confidence that users place in this review. Only about seven per cent of challenged awards have been set aside since 1989, and even this figure is inflated by sports cases. Revision has been granted only four times since 1992. Decisions are usually rendered within four to six months of the filing of the challenge, and the court expects submissions to be concise, with twenty pages generally regarded as the practical upper limit.²⁵ A separate analysis puts the annulment rate at 7.65 per cent and the median duration at about six months.²⁶ For parties that fear a long tail of annulment litigation after the award, as can occur at seats where challenges pass through two or three instances, the Swiss model offers a decisive advantage.

The First Civil Law Division of the Federal Supreme Court in Lausanne, which decides these challenges, has developed a body of case law on jurisdiction, public policy and the right to be heard that is followed closely by arbitration practitioners worldwide.²⁷ Its decisions on the arbitrability of disputes involving sanctions, on the treatment of corruption allegations and on the limits of public policy review are directly relevant to the financial centre. The chapter on sanctions and export control returns to the interaction between arbitration and sanctions law.

Specialised fields: sport, banking, insurance and trusts

No account of Swiss arbitration is complete without the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. The CAS became operational in 1984, with statutes ratified by the International Olympic Committee in 1983. In the Gundel case of 1993 the Federal Supreme Court recognised the CAS as a genuine arbitral tribunal but expressed concern about its ties to the IOC. The International Council of Arbitration for Sport was then created as the new governing body, and the Paris Agreement signed on 22 June 1994 formalised the reform. By the end of 2025 the CAS had handled more than 12,000 procedures.²⁸ Its caseload rose from around 600 cases a year between 2016 and 2019 to more than 925 a year between 2020 and 2022.²⁹ The relevance of the CAS for Zurich lies in the presence of FIFA, whose headquarters are in the city and whose decisions in disciplinary, transfer and regulatory matters are regularly appealed to the CAS.³⁰ Sports arbitration thus forms a bridge between the Lausanne court and a Zurich-based legal practice in football transfers, player agency and sports finance.

Banking and finance disputes form a second specialised field. International banks with Zurich operations often prefer the courts for disputes with private clients and for debt recovery, while choosing arbitration for complex cross-border transactions, joint ventures and disputes with state entities. The statistics of the Swiss Arbitration Centre show banking and finance as one of its three largest sectors. Insurance and reinsurance, a Zurich strength since the nineteenth century, have their own tradition of arbitration, in which industry experts frequently sit as arbitrators and in which the combination of Swiss law with a Zurich seat is a familiar choice. The new supplemental rules for trust, estate and foundation disputes, finally, complete the offer for the private client industry. They address the questions of representation of beneficiaries who are minors or not yet ascertained, of confidentiality and of the binding effect of awards on persons who are not signatories of the trust deed.³¹

Notes

1. Federal Act on Private International Law of 18 December 1987 (PILA), SR 291, in force since 1 January 1989; consolidated text reproduced by lexaris, https://lexaris.de/book/version/documentflat/head/2776778 (version as at 1 January 2025). ↩
2. PILA, Art. 176 para. 1, English translation of Chapter 12 published by the Swiss Arbitration Association, https://www.swissarbitration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/20210129-Chapter-12-PILA_Translation_English.pdf. ↩
3. CPC (SR 272), Art. 353 para. 2, bilingual edition, https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/de-fr/2/27/272-353-361.html, and PILA (SR 291), Art. 176 para. 2, https://www.droit-bilingue.ch/de-fr/2/29/291-176-214.html: the parties may exclude the regime otherwise applicable by a declaration in the arbitration agreement or a later agreement and agree on the application of the other. ↩
4. Cleary Gottlieb, “The Revised Swiss International Arbitration Act – Key Changes and Developments” (2021), https://www.clearygottlieb.com/-/media/files/alert-memos-2021/the-revised-swiss-international-arbitration-act--key-changes-and-developments.pdf. ↩
5. PILA, Art. 178 para. 1, English translation, Swiss Arbitration Association, loc. cit. ↩
6. PILA, Art. 179 para. 2, English translation, Swiss Arbitration Association, loc. cit. ↩
7. PILA, Art. 185a, English translation, Swiss Arbitration Association, loc. cit. ↩
8. Federal Supreme Court Act (BGG), Art. 77 para. 2bis, as reproduced in the Swiss Arbitration Association’s English translation of Chapter 12 PILA, loc. cit. On the practice since 1 January 2021, see Global Arbitration Review, The Guide to Challenging and Enforcing Arbitration Awards, 4th edn., chapter “Switzerland”, https://globalarbitrationreview.com/guide/the-guide-challenging-and-enforcing-arbitration-awards/4th-edition/article/switzerland. ↩
9. Cleary Gottlieb, “The Revised Swiss International Arbitration Act”, loc. cit. ↩
10. Wikipedia (German), “Zürcher Handelskammer”, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrcher_Handelskammer (founding in 1873 on the initiative of the Zurich stock exchange association, original name Kaufmännische Gesellschaft, present name since 1919). Cited for orientation. The administration of arbitrations under its own rules before 2004 is standard knowledge in Swiss arbitration literature. ↩
11. Wikipedia (German), “Zürcher Handelskammer”, loc. cit. (participation of the Zurich chamber in the Swiss Chambers’ Arbitration Institution together with the chambers of Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano and Neuchâtel). Cited for orientation. ↩
12. Swiss Arbitration Association, “New Swiss Arbitration Centre and Revised Swiss Rules”, https://www.swissarbitration.org/new-swiss-arbitration-centre-and-revised-swiss-rules/ (Swiss Rules enacted in 2004, revised in 2012 and 2021). ↩
13. Swiss Arbitration Association, “New Swiss Arbitration Centre and Revised Swiss Rules”, loc. cit. (transformation at the end of May 2021; ASA as majority shareholder; revised Swiss Rules in force on 1 June 2021; management team hosted in Geneva). ↩
14. Zürcher Handelskammer, “Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit”, https://www.zhk.ch/de/schiedsgerichtsbarkeit.html. ↩
15. Swiss Arbitration Association, “Swiss Arbitration Centre – Annual Report 2025”, https://www.swissarbitration.org/swiss-arbitration-centre-annual-report-2025/. ↩
16. PILA, Art. 178 para. 4, in force since 1 January 2021: “The provisions of this Chapter shall apply by analogy to an arbitration clause set out in a unilateral legal act or in articles of association.” Swiss Arbitration Association, English translation of Chapter 12 PILA (as in force from 1 January 2021), https://www.swissarbitration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/20210129-Chapter-12-PILA_Translation_English.pdf. ↩
17. Swiss Chambers’ Arbitration Institution, “Arbitration Statistics 2020”, https://www.swissarbitration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SCAI-Stat-2020_for-publication-on-website-and-other-presentations-1.pdf. ↩
18. Swiss Arbitration Association, “Update from the Swiss Arbitration Centre” (statistics 2023), https://www.swissarbitration.org/update-from-the-swiss-arbitration-centre-3/. ↩
19. Swiss Arbitration Association, “Swiss Arbitration Centre – Annual Report 2024”, https://www.swissarbitration.org/update-from-the-swiss-arbitration-centre-2024/. The report adds that around two thirds of the arbitration clauses invoked still referred to SCAI or to the Swiss chambers of commerce under their former names. ↩
20. Swiss Arbitration Association, “Swiss Arbitration Centre – Annual Report 2025”, loc. cit. ↩
21. Charles Russell Speechlys, “ICC Arbitration Statistics 2024 – UAE Breaks into Top 5 Seats”, https://www.charlesrussellspeechlys.com/en/insights/quick-reads/102ks5d-icc-arbitration-statistics-2024-uae-breaks-into-top-5-seats/. ↩
22. HFW, “ICC’s 2023 Statistics Confirm Switzerland as a Premier Arbitration Jurisdiction”, https://www.hfw.com/insights/iccs-2023-statistics-confirm-switzerland-as-a-premier-arbitration-jurisdiction/. ↩
23. PILA, Arts. 190, 190a and 191, English translation, Swiss Arbitration Association, loc. cit. ↩
24. PILA, Art. 192, English translation, Swiss Arbitration Association, loc. cit. ↩
25. Global Arbitration Review, The Guide to Challenging and Enforcing Arbitration Awards, 4th edn., chapter “Switzerland”, loc. cit. ↩
26. Delos Dispute Resolution, Guide to Arbitration Places (GAP), 2nd edn. 2024, chapter “Switzerland”, loc. cit. ↩
27. See, for example, Federal Supreme Court, judgment 4A_174/2015 of 30 June 2015, rendered by the I. zivilrechtliche Abteilung on a challenge under Art. 190 PILA against a CAS award, https://servat.unibe.ch/dfr/bger/2015/150630_4A_174-2015.html. The allocation of arbitration-related appeals to this division follows from the internal regulations of the Federal Supreme Court. ↩
28. Court of Arbitration for Sport, “History of the CAS”, https://www.tas-cas.org/en/general-information/history. ↩
29. Delos Dispute Resolution, Guide to Arbitration Places (GAP), 2nd edn. 2024, chapter “Switzerland”, loc. cit. ↩
30. FIFA, “Court of Arbitration for Sport”, https://inside.fifa.com/legal/court-of-arbitration-for-sport, citing Art. 57 of the FIFA Statutes, under which appeals against final decisions passed by FIFA’s legal bodies must be lodged with the CAS within 21 days of notification. ↩
31. Supplemental Swiss Rules for Trust, Estate and Foundation Disputes (TEF Rules), in force since 1 July 2025: Homburger, “New Supplemental Swiss Rules for Trust, Estate and Foundation Disputes (TEF Rules) to enter into force on July 1, 2025”, 27 May 2025, https://homburger.ch/de/insights/new-supplemental-swiss-rules-for-trust-estate-and-foundation-disputes-tef-rules-to-enter-into-force-on-july-1-2025 (notification, information rights, representation of affected parties); MLL, “Arbitrating Private-Wealth Disputes: Why the Swiss Rules for Trust, Estate and Foundation (TEF) Matter”, 2 February 2026, https://www.mll-news.com/arbitrating-private-wealth-disputes-why-the-swiss-rules-for-trust-estate-and-foundation-tef-matter/?lang=en (representation of persons in accordance with mandatory law, confidentiality, beneficiaries bound by accepting a benefit). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.