Answer ... The grounds on which an award may be challenged are set out in the Arbitration Act. Pursuant to Section 34, an award may be set aside if:

• it is not covered by a valid arbitration agreement between the parties;
• the arbitrators made the award after the expiration of the timeframe decided by the parties or have otherwise exceeded their mandate;
• the arbitral proceedings, according to the Arbitration Act, should not have taken place in Sweden;
• an arbitrator was appointed contrary to the agreement between the parties or to the Arbitration Act;
• an arbitrator was unauthorised due to any circumstance set out in the Arbitration Act, such as partiality; or
• there occurred, without the fault of a party, an irregularity in the course of the proceedings which probably influenced the outcome of the case.

An award may further be invalid if:

• the award includes determination of an issue which, in accordance with Swedish law, may not be decided by arbitration;
• the award or the manner in which it arose is clearly incompatible with the basic principles of the Swedish legal system; or
• the award does not fulfil the requirements with regard to the written form and signature pursuant to the Arbitration Act.

Furthermore, a party may request that the arbitrators supplement, correct or interpret the award if it contains an obvious inaccuracy as a consequence of a typographical, computational or similar mistake, or if the arbitrators by oversight failed to decide an issue which should have been dealt with in the award.

Answer ... A challenge must in most cases be brought within three months of the date on which the party receives the award. Where supplementation, correction or interpretation of the award has taken place, the challenge must be brought within three months of the date on which the party receives the award in its final wording. A party challenging an award may not rely on a circumstance to which it should have objected during the proceedings.

A request by a party for the arbitrators to supplement, correct or interpret the award must be put forward within 30 days of announcement of the award.

Answer ... For non-Swedish commercial parties, the Arbitration Act provides the opportunity to enter into an express written agreement whereby the parties waive, in advance, their right to challenge the award as set forth in Section 34 of the Arbitration Act. The agreement must be sufficiently specific and clear in order to be effective.