There is no provision in the code prohibiting the parties from including a provision in a valid arbitration clause that if one of the arbitrators refuses to take part in the proceeding or sign the award, the other remaining arbitrator or arbitrators together with the presiding arbitrator shall constitute the complete arbitration court appointed in accordance with § 577 of the [former Austrian] Civil Procedure Code.

The defendant’s objection to appointment of a super-arbitrator is not justified by Civil Procedure Law Art. 1370¹, which clearly vests this right with the court, and the arbitrators’ mutual selection of the super-arbitrator is not provided for in the statute.

An arbitration award may be served on a party who has departed to a place unknown after issuance of the award, via a guardian for an absent person, appointed by the court for this purpose.

Because it was found that the petitioner had not signed the arbitration clause, through placement of her signature or her mark, it was correctly ruled that the arbitration award issued on the basis of such clause was ineffective, and with respect to both petitioners; from the nature of the legal relationship which was to be determined by the arbitration award, there is an apparent uniformity of interest for both of the petitioners.

An arbitration agreement is governed by provisions of public law, not private law. Under the regulations concerning the judicial system, a person who is formally subject to guardianship due to mental illness may not become a judge; therefore, applying this rule by analogy, a person is not capable of serving as an arbitrator who at the time of appointment as an arbitrator was formally subject to guardianship due to mental illness, notwithstanding the claim that such person was already in fact mentally fit at that time or upon issuance of the award.

1. The clear wording of the deed of purchase and sale leaves no doubt that the parties submitted to the arbitration court, in advance, all disputes which might arise out of the contract, certainly not excluding a dispute over transfer of ownership.

2. When referring in the deed to the West Prussian Chamber of Agriculture as authorized to appoint the presiding arbitrator, the parties must have had in mind, for the future, the analogous Polish institution, because the deed was concluded after signing of the Treaty of Versailles, in which Pomerania was awarded to Poland.

Only certification by a notary or justice of the peace of the signatures of all the persons taking part in the arbitration court—that is, the signature of the parties as well as the arbitrators—gives solemn form to the submission to arbitration, and, as follows from that, transforms such deed from an ordinary writing into a submission to arbitration, pursuant to the common maxim that the form gives being to the thing (forma dat esse rei). In other words, in cases where the parliament requires certain strict forms in performing an act, the act itself exists only if such forms are observed.