Court of Milano, judgment of 26 June 2026, No. 5315

The question whether a dispute falls within the cognisance of arbitrators rather than the ordinary courts constitutes a question of competence and not of jurisdiction, in view of the jurisdictional nature of the activity performed by arbitrators; accordingly, an objection based on the existence of an arbitration agreement must be characterised by the court according to its substantive content, regardless of the label attributed to it by the party raising it.
The existence of an arbitration clause does not preclude the grant of an order for payment (decreto ingiuntivo), but where the clause is duly raised by way of objection in opposition proceedings, the court is required to revoke the order and declare its own lack of competence in favour of the arbitrators.
A promise of payment or acknowledgement of debt, although serving the merely procedural function of abstracting the cause of the obligation and reversing the burden of proof, does not constitute an autonomous source of obligation and remains inseparably connected to the underlying substantive relationship; for the purpose of determining arbitral competence, regard must therefore be had to the fundamental relationship from which the claim arises.