Spain: An Arbitrators Overview

Madrid is Booming: the Bright Present and Future of Spanish-Conducted International Arbitration

Spanish-conducted international arbitration is certainly expanding and consolidating at a fast pace. More than 600 million people speak Spanish all around the world. The latest statistics from the ICC confirm that Spanish is the second most frequent language of the awards rendered in the context of that court, only surpassed by English. The ICC statistics also show that two Spanish-speaking locations – Mexico and Spain – rank among the top ten most commonly chosen seats of arbitration. In this context, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the Spanish and Ibero-American Club of Arbitration (CEIA) and the Centro Internacional e Iberoamericano de Arbitraje (CIIAM), recently signed a Manifesto for the promotion of the use of Spanish in international arbitration.

In this thriving situation, Madrid emerges as a particularly attractive seat for international arbitrations. Madrid’s most valuable assets remain its close ties to the Ibero-American community as well as a reliable and high-quality legal environment. Here are six elements and recent trends that confirm the city’s privileged position as a seat for international arbitration:

• Madrid is particularly recommendable for disputes arising in Ibero-America. On the one hand, because we share the same language, Spanish, which is now spoken by more than 600 million people worldwide, according to Instituto Cervantes’ latest figures. On the other hand, because we have very similar legal systems and share practically the same Arbitration Act (since the Spanish Arbitration Act is also based on the Model Law). Moreover, our private law systems have remarkable similarities.
• Madrid-based arbitration is cost-effective and significantly more affordable than other major European or American seats, while getting the same legal quality. In all cases, the cost of, for instance, accommodation, meals, transport and venues for holding hearings is significantly lower than in other major arbitration seats like Miami, Geneva, London, Paris or New York. In particular, the legal costs are significantly lower, in spite of the prestige and reputation of Spanish counsel.
• Madrid has very competitive and efficient institutions to administer international arbitrations. The latest trend and clearest example of this is the CIIAM arbitration centre, which has a very sophisticated set of rules, in line with the latest and highest standards of international practice of the most prestigious arbitration institutions. The CIIAM was established in 2019, bringing together a constellation of pre-existing smaller Spanish arbitration chambers and integrating them into a single, stronger institution that now centralises international arbitration cases. Furthermore, in April 2025, it entered into an agreement with the Arbitration and Mediation Centre of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce (CAM Santiago) under which CAM Santiago incorporated its international arbitration activities into CIIAM, thereby consolidating its truly Ibero-American character. As a result of this agreement, CAM Santiago became part of CIIAM with respect to its international arbitration activities, enjoying the same status as its founding courts, which are also joined by the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) and the Ibero-American International Arbitration Centre (CIAR) as strategic partners. The statistics from CIIAM, as of 2025, show that, on average, the cases administered by the Centre are resolved in one year and four months, with cases being heard by tribunals or sole arbitrators from up to 12 nationalities.
• Madrid is a completely safe and reliable city to arbitrate in, where (i) the national courts respect the role and remit of arbitrators and (ii) where the intervention of the national courts is kept to a minimum. Furthermore, a doctrine that had been held by Madrid’s Regional Court regarding the annulment of awards has been overcome in the last few years by a continued deference towards arbitration by the Spanish Constitutional Court. In fact, the recent Decision of the Constitutional Court of 2 December 2024, which essentially reiterated its long-standing jurisprudence, once again stated that public order does not justify annulling an award on the basis that the judiciary may have reservations or a different opinion on the motivation of the award, emphatically stating that the annulment action cannot be used to review the merits of the arbitrators’ decision, nor to review their assessment of the evidence or their interpretation of the law. It can safely be said that, nowadays, the action for annulment, far from being a risk or a pathology, is a guarantee with a very limited scope, and which is only intended to ensure respect for the due process rights of the parties. The safety and arbitration-friendly environment is confirmed by recent research from Pompeu Fabra University showing that, in Spain, “[t]he rate of judicial annulment of awards, which has been decreasing in recent years, is low” (access the research here).
• Madrid has a sophisticated legal landscape and highly qualified lawyers and arbitrators. Legal firms in Spain, both national and international, are used to dealing with all sorts of international matters, and the quality and preparedness of Spanish lawyers, experts and arbitrators is one of the main factors that lead to Madrid being selected as the seat. Moreover, the majority of the world’s most relevant legal firms now have an office in Madrid.
• Madrid’s outstanding international connections make it easily reachable and accessible for all actors involved. Madrid is the city with the largest number of international flights to Ibero-America. Normally, Ibero-American nationals do not need a visa to enter the EU, which means that Madrid can be easily accessed by all the witnesses, experts, arbitrators and lawyers involved in the dispute.

Spain’s Arbitration Act is very favourable to the arbitrability of matters, given that, under the Arbitration Act, an international dispute is arbitrable if it meets the requirements established by the rules of law chosen by the parties to govern the arbitration agreement, or by the rules of law applicable to the substance of the dispute, or by Spanish law. This means that even if the matter is not arbitrable under Spanish law, the parties in an international dispute will still be able to choose Spain as the seat of arbitration, as it suffices that the matter is arbitrable as per the law applicable to the substance of the dispute.