Jurisdiction over the challenge of an award rendered in contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale) lies with the court of the place where the arbitrator who issued the decision operates, the subject matter of the dispute referred to the arbitral body being irrelevant, and that principle applies to both arbitration proper and contractual arbitration.
The challenge of an award rendered in contractual arbitration is governed by art. 808 ter of the code of civil procedure, paragraph 2 of which exhaustively lists the grounds justifying annulment of the award, to the exclusion of an application to set aside for nullity.
In contractual arbitration, the identification of a seat of the arbitral tribunal different from that contractually agreed does not constitute an irregularity capable of affecting the validity of the award, where no intention of the parties to elevate the seat to a condition of validity of the arbitral determination can be inferred from the terms of the contract.
The principle of adversarial proceedings in contractual arbitration is safeguarded by the grant to the parties of time limits for the exchange of written submissions and by the consideration of the defences advanced by both parties in the arbitral determination.