Court of Appeal of Florence, judgment of 6 July 2026, No. 2491

For the purpose of identifying the means of challenge against an award, what matters is the characterisation of the arbitration made by the arbitrators: where they characterised it as arbitration, the award may be challenged for nullity before the Court of Appeal under art. 828 cod. proc. civ.; where they characterised it as contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale), the challenge must be brought before the tribunal under art. 808-ter cod. proc. civ.
The parties' choice of contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale) must be clearly expressed, so that, in case of interpretative uncertainty, the arbitration agreement must be construed as providing for arbitration.
A provision that the award shall not be subject to challenge and shall be immediately enforceable points to the nature of the proceedings as arbitration, since an award rendered in contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale) is never enforceable, whereas a reference to arbitrators as amiables compositeurs or to the irrituale character of the decision may merely express the criterion of decision ex aequo et bono.
An award rendered in contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale) where the agreement provides for arbitration is null, both because it was rendered outside the limits of the arbitration agreement under art. 829, co. 1, no. 4, cod. proc. civ., and because the arbitrators failed to comply with the rules laid down by the parties as a condition of validity of the award under art. 808-ter, co. 2, no. 4, cod. proc. civ.
In case of conflict between the arbitration agreement and the referenced arbitration rules, the agreement prevails under art. 832, co. 2, cod. proc. civ., so that an award rendered by a sole arbitrator appointed under the expedited procedure provided for in the rules is invalid where the agreement allows a sole arbitrator to replace the tribunal only with the parties' consent.
The liquidator in a controlled liquidation procedure has no standing to bring or pursue a challenge against an award rendered against the debtor, such action having no function of recovering assets, without prejudice to the debtor's own standing.