The challenge of an arbitral award under art. 829 cod. proc. civ. is a limited form of review and does not give rise to appellate proceedings authorising the court to re-examine the merits of the arbitrators’ decision, but permits only the iudicium rescindens, namely the determination of whether any of the grounds of nullity provided for by the provision exists.
In arbitration on equitable grounds, challenge of the award for breach of substantive rules of law or for errores in iudicando that do not amount to non-observance of fundamental and mandatory rules of public policy, enacted to protect general interests and therefore not derogable by the will of the parties nor capable of forming the subject-matter of an arbitration agreement, is precluded. Challenge is admissible only where the arbitral decision upsets the fundamental values of the legal order established to safeguard requirements of general interest.
The arbitration clause contained in the articles of association of an unincorporated association constitutes an autonomous contract with procedural effects, having its own individuality distinct from the articles governing the life of the association, so that the suppression of the arbitration clause, concerning a right of constitutional rank such as the right to judicial protection, requires the individual consent of all the members and cannot be effected by majority vote.
The inconsistency relevant for the purposes of the nullity of the award under art. 829(1)(11) cod. proc. civ. is only that which arises between the different parts of the operative provisions or, in certain cases, between the reasoning and the operative provisions, and not an internal inconsistency between different parts of the reasoning.
The inadmissibility of a challenge to the award for non-observance of rules of law, under art. 829(2) cod. proc. civ., where the parties have authorised the arbitrators to decide on equitable grounds, subsists even where the arbitrators have in fact applied rules of law, considering them consistent with an equitable resolution of the dispute, since this does not transform the equity arbitration into a law-based arbitration.