SCC and AI in arbitration: the 2024 Guide, the Rules and Swedish law

The short version

• The SCC Arbitration Institute is Stockholm’s arbitration body in Sweden, part of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce since 1917 and independent in how it administers cases. On 16 October 2024 it adopted a Guide to the use of AI in cases administered under the SCC Rules. It is short and non-binding.
• The Guide permits AI but keeps four principles: confidentiality, quality, integrity and non-delegation of the decision-making mandate. A tribunal “cannot delegate the decision or the reasoning leading to it to anyone or anything”.
• Disclosure is encouraged, not required, and only for AI a tribunal uses “in researching and interpreting facts and the law or applying the law to facts”.
• The SCC Arbitration Rules 2023 and the Swedish Arbitration Act do not mention AI. The general duties apply: confidentiality, the personal mandate and no delegation of decisions to a secretary.
• The SCC co-signed the 23 July 2026 joint letter of 16 arbitral institutions, asking that the EU AI Act’s high-risk label fall on AI the tribunal uses to decide, not on institutions’ administrative tools. Those duties apply from 2 December 2027.
• The SCC says it uses AI in its own Secretariat for administrative work only, and offers no AI arbitrator. See AI in arbitration for the wider picture.^{1,2,4,5,8,19,24,31}

What does the SCC Guide on the use of AI say?

The SCC Guide to the use of artificial intelligence in cases administered under the SCC Rules, adopted by the SCC Board on 16 October 2024, is a three-page, non-binding text. It offers “flexible guidance to participants in an SCC case without imposing specific obligations” and “may be updated from time to time”. Where it is incompatible with the parties’ agreement or mandatory rules, “the latter shall of course prevail”.¹

The Guide takes the EU AI Act’s Article 3(1) definition of an AI system and notes the Act entered into force on 1 August 2024. It then lists 12 current uses of AI in arbitration: legal research; editing and proof-reading; translation and interpretation; transcription; briefing notes, diagrams and summaries; drafting communications and submissions; document production; document management; reviewing, analysing and presenting evidence; drafting cross-examination questions; arbitrator appointments; and case-value analysis.^1,7

The four principles are addressed to a tribunal using AI “in researching and interpreting facts and the law and in applying the law to a concrete set of facts”, which the Guide reads as the EU AI Act’s high-risk category.¹

One point is our reading. The Guide says the Act “qualifies as high-risk AI systems used by an Arbitral Tribunal” for that purpose. The Act’s own words differ: Annex III point 8(a) covers AI “used in a similar way in alternative dispute resolution”, and Recital 61 ties the label to ADR outcomes that produce legal effects for the parties. That gap between the tribunal and the ADR “body” is what the 2026 joint letter later addresses. How the Act reaches arbitration generally is in the EU AI Act and dispute resolution.^1,7

The Guide sits outside the Rules. The SCC’s policies page lists it among policies that “are not intended and should not be treated as additional arbitration rules”, and no revised version had appeared by 30 October 2026. The tracker row for the Guide is at the AI rules tracker.³

What else has the SCC published or done on AI?

Beyond the Guide, the SCC has published an administrative-secretaries guide addressing AI, co-signed the EU AI Act joint letter, adopted AI in its Secretariat and run AI events. It has issued no AI-specific arbitration rule.^4,22,24

The SCC’s Secretary General also joined a Swedish Arbitration Association panel on the EU AI Act and arbitration on 21 October 2025. The AI rules tracker summarises each institution’s AI text at the AI rules tracker.²⁸

Do the SCC Arbitration Rules 2023 say anything about AI?

No. The SCC Arbitration Rules 2023 (in force 1 January 2023) and the SCC Expedited Arbitration Rules 2023 do not mention AI or technology. Several articles still bear on AI use, and the Guide maps onto them. These links are our reading; the SCC has not said the articles apply to AI.^19,20

• Confidentiality (Article 3): unless agreed otherwise, “the SCC, the Arbitral Tribunal and any administrative secretary of the Arbitral Tribunal” keep the arbitration and award confidential. The parties are not listed. This is the natural home for the Guide’s confidentiality principle. What confidentiality, privilege and data protection require when AI touches case material is in confidentiality and AI in arbitration.
• Conduct (Article 23): the tribunal acts “in an impartial, efficient, and expeditious manner, giving each party an equal and reasonable opportunity to present its case” (23(2)). That is the efficiency gain the Guide cites, and the due-process limit on it.
• Administrative secretary (Article 24): appointment needs the parties’ approval (24(1)), and the tribunal “may not delegate any decision-making authority to the administrative secretary” (24(2)). The Expedited Rules mirror this at Article 25(2).
• Case management conference (Article 28): it may be held “in person or by any other means” (28(2)). That is the point at which an AI protocol can be agreed and recorded in Procedural Order No. 1.
• Award (Article 42): written and reasoned unless the parties agree otherwise (42(1)), and “signed by the arbitrators” (42(3)).
• What the SCC itself does: Appendix I, Article 2 states that “The SCC does not itself decide disputes”. The SCC later leans on this in the EU AI Act letter.^19,20

The nearest analogy is the administrative secretary. The SCC’s 2024 Guidelines for Arbitrators say a secretary’s duties are limited to “organizational, clerical and administrative functions” and that the tribunal “may not delegate to the administrative secretary any decision-making or drafting of substantive parts of decisions or awards”. The 2026 administrative-secretaries guide adds an “AI and the evolving role” section, and reports that in Svea Court of Appeal Case T 8181-19 (8 October 2021) a secretary who drafted or proofread an award did not, in itself, show decisive influence on its content. We cite that case as the SCC reports it; the judgment was not opened. On using AI to help draft the award, the Guide neither allows nor bars it: AI “may be used to support arbitral decision-making but cannot replace it”, so it is fine only where the tribunal keeps the decision and the reasoning its own and checks the output.^1,21,22

A rules-revision survey opened on 21 February 2025, but the 2023 Rules remain current and no draft had appeared by 30 October 2026. The Rules also cover agreements that name the body’s former title, the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.^19,23,26

Must arbitrators disclose AI use in an SCC arbitration?

No. The Guide only encourages a tribunal to disclose AI it uses “in researching and interpreting facts and the law or applying the law to facts”. There is no disclosure rule, and the encouragement is on the tribunal, not the parties.¹

The Guide says disclosure “may assist in ensuring the parties’ rights to be heard” and that the tribunal stays within its mandate. It does not say disclosure is required, so treat any “may be required” wording as a misreading. The scope is narrow: AI used to research or interpret facts and law or apply law to facts, not clerical uses.¹

Nothing in the 2023 Rules requires disclosure of AI use. An arbitrator’s existing declarations cover impartiality and independence (Article 18), and the parties or the tribunal can set an AI standard at the case management conference (Article 28). How each institution’s text compares on disclosure is in AI disclosure in arbitration, and the SVAMC and Ciarb positions are in the SVAMC Guidelines and the Ciarb Guideline.¹⁹

Can AI be an arbitrator in an SCC case or under Swedish law?

The SCC has taken no position beyond the Guide’s non-delegation principle, and the Swedish Arbitration Act is silent on AI. Read together, they leave an AI unable to hold the arbitrator’s mandate, though that is our reading, as neither text addresses AI directly.^1,31

• The Guide: a tribunal “cannot delegate the decision or the reasoning leading to it to anyone or anything”.
• The Rules assume human arbitrators: a tribunal of “one or more arbitrators” (Article 1) and an award “signed by the arbitrators” (Article 42(3)).
• The Swedish Arbitration Act (SFS 1999:116, as amended through SFS 2018:1954): section 7 says “Any person who possesses full legal capacity in regard to his or her actions and property may act as an arbitrator”, and section 31 requires an award “made in writing and ... signed by the arbitrators”.
• Set-aside exposure if a tribunal mishandles AI: section 34 allows an award to be set aside where the tribunal exceeded its mandate in a way likely to have affected the outcome (point 3), where an arbitrator was unauthorised under section 7 or section 8 (point 6), or for a procedural error likely to have affected the outcome (point 7), within a two-month limit. Section 33 makes an award invalid where it, or the way it was made, is “manifestly incompatible with the fundamental principles of the Swedish legal system”.^1,19,31,32

Awards challenged over AI use, including the April 2026 Québec annulment, are in awards challenged over AI use. Whether an AI-assisted award can be enforced abroad is in AI and award enforcement. We found no Swedish judgment on an award challenged over AI use.³¹

Does the SCC use AI itself?

Yes, but it says only for administrative work. In February 2026 the SCC Secretariat adopted a legal-AI platform for document analysis, drafting support and research, saying the tools help it work efficiently while “human judgement and expertise remain at the forefront of every decision”.²⁴

• In the EU AI Act submission it co-signed, the SCC takes the position that arbitral institutions use AI only for administrative and organisational work, and that responsibility for any AI-assisted decision rests with the arbitral tribunal.
• In January 2025 it agreed to publish a curated set of pseudonymised SCC awards on an AI-powered legal-research platform, to widen access to arbitration materials.
• The SCC Platform, used in all new SCC arbitrations since September 2019, is a cloud platform for case communication, with multi-factor authentication added in March 2026. The SCC describes no AI feature in it, notes that once uploaded “files cannot be removed from the Platform”, and keeps storage “within the EU/EEA”.^4,25,29,30

How to assess an AI tool before putting case material into it is in AI legal tech, and whether the SCC should choose AI for arbitrator appointments is in AI and arbitrator selection.³⁰

What does the EU AI Act mean for SCC arbitration?

For an SCC arbitration, the EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) matters mainly where AI helps the tribunal decide. AI used that way, in a case whose outcome has legal effects for the parties, can count as high-risk. Annex III point 8(a) reaches AI used to assist in “researching and interpreting facts and the law and in applying the law to a concrete set of facts, or to be used in a similar way in alternative dispute resolution”. Recital 61 holds the label to ADR outcomes with legal effects for the parties and leaves out purely ancillary administrative activities.⁷

On 23 July 2026 the SCC co-signed a joint letter to the Commission’s AI Office with 15 other arbitral institutions, among them the ICC, ICSID, the ICDR of the AAA, the LCIA and VIAC. The letter argues institutions “do not decide the merits of the dispute” (section 1) and that draft-guideline paragraphs 428 and 429 risk “attaching the resulting obligations to a wrong actor”. It asks that the judicial-administration carve-out (draft paragraphs 411 and 412, read with Recital 61) apply to institutions, and that the Commission correct its account of investment dispute bodies (section 4). The letter’s entry sits in the AI rules tracker.^4,5

Timing: these high-risk obligations apply from 2 December 2027 under Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (the Digital Omnibus, art 1 point (40)(b)). As of 30 October 2026 the Commission’s draft guidelines of 19 May 2026 were not adopted. The Commission’s page, last updated 19 October 2026, still presents them as draft and says feedback will be incorporated “before adoption”. The full role-and-duty read is in the EU AI Act and dispute resolution, the European institutional response is in AI in dispute resolution in Europe, and the institution that coordinated the letter has its own page, the LCIA and AI.^8,9,10,11

How does the SCC Guide compare with other institutions’ AI texts?

The SCC published its Guide in October 2024, ahead of most institutions, and like them it leaves the decision with the arbitrator. The texts differ most on disclosure and on whether they bind.^{1,12,13,14,15}

Unlike AAA-ICDR, the SCC offers no AI arbitrator and no AI-drafting rule; its Guide sits with the SCC Rules rather than inside them. The peer explainers are the ICC and AI, VIAC and AI, the Ciarb Guideline and the SVAMC Guidelines, and the AAA AI arbitrator is in AAA and AI. The AI rules tracker compares every text at the AI rules tracker.^17,18

What is not settled about the SCC and AI?

• Whether the SCC will put AI into the Rules in the pending revision, or keep it in the non-binding Guide.
• Whether tribunal disclosure should move from encouraged to required, and whether it should reach the parties, not just the tribunal.
• Whether a tribunal’s AI tool is treated like an administrative secretary, with the parties approving its tasks, given the tension between the 2024 Arbitrators’ Guidelines and the 2026 administrative-secretaries guide on drafting.
• Whether the Commission adopts the joint letter’s reading in its final high-risk guidelines, and whether the SCC would be the provider or the deployer of any AI it adopts.
• How a Stockholm-seated award challenged over AI use would fare under sections 33 and 34 of the Swedish Arbitration Act. We found no Swedish judgment on the point.^{1,7,9,19,21,22,31}