The ordinary court has jurisdiction to issue an order for payment notwithstanding the existence of an arbitration clause in the contract from which the credit claimed in the proceedings arises. Where opposition to the order for payment is filed, ordinary contentious proceedings are commenced and, if the debtor raises the objection of arbitral jurisdiction, the conditions set out in the arbitration agreement are verified, with the consequence that the court seised ceases to have jurisdiction and must revoke the order for payment and refer the parties to the arbitral tribunal.
Arbitration clauses are among those subject to specific written approval pursuant to Articles 1341 and 1342 of the Civil Code only where they are contained in standard terms of business or in contracts concluded by means of standard forms.
Only those contractual structures intended to regulate an indefinite series of transactions, both from a substantive and a formal standpoint, may be characterised as contracts of adhesion, whereas contracts drafted by one of the contracting parties in contemplation of and with reference to a single, specific transaction, in respect of which the other party may request and make amendments after having freely appraised the content, or contracts concluded following negotiations between the parties, cannot be so characterised.
An arbitration clause contained in a contract that is not classifiable as a contract of adhesion is valid without the need for specific approval pursuant to Article 1341(2) of the Civil Code.
The upholding of the objection of lack of jurisdiction by reason of the referral of the dispute to arbitrators entails the revocation of the order for payment that is the subject of the opposition and a declaration of lack of jurisdiction in favour of the arbitral tribunal indicated, with the fixing of a time limit for the resumption of the proceedings for the purposes of translatio iudicii.