At the end of the year 2022, the DIS, the CEA and the CIAM have agreed to establish a permanent working group with equal representation. The purpose of this working group is to improve mutual knowledge of German and Spanish arbitration practice and to promote and perpetuate personal exchange among the arbitration practitioners involved. At the same time, the exchange on relevant substantive issues, i.e. comparative substantive law, will be deepened.
Nothing needs to be explained to the readers of the SchiedsVZ regarding the DIS. The CEA - Club Español del Arbitraje - founded in 2005, is a Spanish non-profit association dedicated to the promotion of arbitration as a method of dispute resolution as well as to the development of arbitration in Spanish and Portuguese or with an Ibero-American component and is leading in Spain with this objective. It has an impressive international network through its international chapters. It does not administer arbitration or other ADR proceedings. CIAM - Centro Internacional de Arbitraje de Madrid - began operations on January 1, 2020 to provide services for the administration of international arbitration and mediation proceedings in Spanish, Portuguese, English and French. This international focus sets CIAM apart among other institutions in Spain.
The joint working group is coordinated from the DIS side for a first period limited to 2 years by Erik Schäfer and from the Spanish side by Josef Fröhlingsdorf. Its other members are Heidi Lopez Castro, Dr. Thomas Knaak, Jaqueline Lopez, Dr. Luis Capiel, Meike von Leventzow, Miguel Gomez, Vanessa Zimmermann de Meireles, Deva Villanúa Gómez, Paul Salazar, Konstantin Tschöpe, Dr. Roland Kläger, Miguel Gomez.
Immediately after its constitution, the group started working on an action program that is to include at least one one-day face-to-face event and further shorter events organized online or hybrid. The first event will be held in the second half of the year 23, probably in Berlin, and be devoted to the activities of the participating institutions and to Spanish and German arbitration law. A similar event will follow in Madrid, probably in 2024. The other events on procedural and substantive law topics are at an early stage of conception, but will always have a comparative law orientation.
Erik Schäfer