Court of Vibo Valentia, judgment of 25 August 2026, No. 636

The arbitration is contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale) where, having regard to the specific and clear undertaking of the parties to treat the award as final and binding in the same way as a contract concluded by them, the decision is the expression of their own intention, with a function akin to the amicable, conciliatory or compromise settlement of the dispute or to a contract of acknowledgement.
Following the introduction of art. 808 ter cod. proc. civ., an arbitration characterised as contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale) remains subject to the rules governing arbitration proper, save where the parties have expressly agreed in writing for the dispute to be settled by contractual determination.
An agreement by which the parties undertake to confer, by private written instrument, a mandate on a board of technical experts to decide whether and to what extent the contractual performances are due constitutes, if expressed in writing, a valid agreement for contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale).
The contractual nature of an award in contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale) does not entail the application of all the rules laid down in respect of contracts, since it is an instrument with its own regime and is not subject to the rules on challenging contracts laid down by the Civil Code; the action to challenge an award in contractual arbitration is akin to that provided for an award in arbitration proper, with a substantial overlap of the grounds of invalidity.
A contractual award may be set aside only on the grounds exhaustively listed in art. 808 ter, co. 2, cod. proc. civ., among them the invalidity of the arbitration agreement, the failure to appoint the arbitrators in the forms and manner laid down by the agreement, a decision rendered by a person who could not be appointed arbitrator, non-compliance with rules imposed by the parties as a condition of the validity of the award, and breach of the principle of audi alteram partem.
In an award in contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale), errors in procedendo or in iudicando are relevant only on condition that they amount to grounds of invalidity, that is to say to incapacity or defects of consent, whereas complaints concerning alleged errors of judgment in the dictum, proper to the challenge to an award in arbitration proper, cannot be raised.
An award in contractual arbitration (arbitrato irrituale) cannot be challenged for errors of judgment or of law, but only for those defects which may vitiate any manifestation of contractual intention, such as mistake of fact, duress, fraud and the incapacity of the parties or of the arbitrator, the sole exception being an error of perception as to the law, bearing on the existence or the continuing force of the rule.
The manifest inequity of the determination may be relevant only from the standpoint of fraud as a defect of the arbitrators' intention.