Electronic delivery of arbitral awards. Form over function in the Finnish Supreme Court

Abstract

In its recent decision, known as KKO 2025:76, the Supreme Court of Finland has confronted a modern challenge in arbitration: does electronic delivery of an arbitral award trigger the statutory time limit for filing a setting-aside action, or must parties await the signed paper original? The case arose from an arbi- tration conducted under the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (“SCC”) Rules, where the arbitral tribunal issued its award on 29 July 2022. On the same day, a PDF copy of the hand-signed award was uploaded to the electronic docu- ment management system known as the SCC Platform, whilst the signed hard copy originals were delivered to the parties by courier on 1 August 2022. The claimants filed their action to set aside the award on 1 November 2022, which fell within the Finnish statutory three-month time limit of receiving the paper copy, but exceeded three months from the electronic notification. Therefore, the Supreme Court had to determine whether the three-month time limit for com- mencement of set-aside proceedings under the Finnish Arbitration Act began from the date when the parties received the PDF copy or from the date of receipt of the signed hard copy original, concluding that the receipt of the signed hard copy original was the decisive date.