sentenza
Court of Appeal of Roma, judgment of 16 July 2026, No. 5966
Corte di Appello of Roma
Legal principle
Acceptance of an arbitration clause requires writing under arts. 807 and 808 cod. proc. civ., which may be satisfied per relationem only where the contract expressly refers to the instrument containing the clause.
In a contract for a party to be nominated, the third party designated takes over the contract, acquiring the rights and assuming the obligations of the original contracting party with retroactive effect, only by virtue of the nomination and of its contemporaneous acceptance, so that, absent acceptance, the arbitration clause contained in that contract may not be relied upon against him.
An arbitration clause may be relied upon against a company whose signature, affixed by a representative vested with signing powers, is shown to be genuine, and this in relation to all the contractual clauses.
The absence of an arbitration clause in the final contract is immaterial as regards the arbitrators' jurisdiction over claims relating to obligations originating in the preliminary contract and in the supplementary written agreement, where the final contract has not exhausted those obligations, constituting only their partial performance; the arbitration clause is indeed autonomous and distinct from the contract to which it is ancillary.
A ground of challenge which, while formally alleging the breach of the canons of interpretation or of the rules on the burden of proof, in substance amounts to a request for a re-examination of the merits of the matter decided by the arbitrators, is inadmissible; in particular, an allegation of breach of the canons of interpretation is inconsistent with the simultaneous assertion that no reasons were given at all.
The court hearing the challenge which rejects a ground of nullity of the award by an apodictic statement, without indicating the elements from which it derived its conclusion, gives merely apparent reasons; nor is a purely nominal reference to another part of the reasoning which has not examined the head of the award under challenge sufficient.
Methodological notes
standard
Decision text and analysis
Acceptance of an arbitration clause requires writing under arts. 807 and 808 cod. proc. civ., which may be satisfied per relationem only where the contract expressly refers to the instrument containing the clause.
In a contract for a party to be nominated, the third party designated takes over the contract, acquiring the rights and assuming the obligations of the original contracting party with retroactive effect, only by virtue of the nomination and of its contemporaneous acceptance, so that, absent acceptance, the arbitration clause contained in that contract may not be relied upon against him.
An arbitration clause may be relied upon against a company whose signature, affixed by a representative vested with signing powers, is shown to be genuine, and this in relation to all the contractual clauses.
The absence of an arbitration clause in the final contract is immaterial as regards the arbitrators’ jurisdiction over claims relating to obligations originating in the preliminary contract and in the supplementary written agreement, where the final contract has not exhausted those obligations, constituting only their partial performance; the arbitration clause is indeed autonomous and distinct from the contract to which it is ancillary.
A ground of challenge which, while formally alleging the breach of the canons of interpretation or of the rules on the burden of proof, in substance amounts to a request for a re-examination of the merits of the matter decided by the arbitrators, is inadmissible; in particular, an allegation of breach of the canons of interpretation is inconsistent with the simultaneous assertion that no reasons were given at all.
The court hearing the challenge which rejects a ground of nullity of the award by an apodictic statement, without indicating the elements from which it derived its conclusion, gives merely apparent reasons; nor is a purely nominal reference to another part of the reasoning which has not examined the head of the award under challenge sufficient.
How to cite
Corte di Appello of Roma, 16 July 2026, No. 5966, «Court of Appeal of Roma, judgment of 16 July 2026, No. 5966», in Arbitration in Italy, https://www.arbitratoinitalia.it/en/decisione/court-of-appeal-of-roma-judgment-of-16-july-2026-no-5966/