SVEA COURT OF APPEAL
Department 02
Rotel 020114

File attachment 104
Case no. O 11558-22 2023-12-20

2024-01-11
Presentation in Stockholm

RATTEN Court of Appeal councilors Ulrika Ihrfelt and Mattias Pleiner and
acting Court of Appeal assessor Josefin Backman, referee

LECTURER AND MINUTES-KEEPER
Specialist rapporteur Lina Wogel

PARTIES

Applicant Villa
Europa Sp. z o. o., 016408763
ul. Sienna 64
00-820 Warsaw
Poland

Deputy: Krzysztof Sienicki
Lipowa 1/Topolowa 19
05-807 Podkowa Lesna
Poland

Counterparty
Henrik Hult, 19751023-0431
Mossvagen 26A
178 38 Ekero

Agents: Attorneys Peter Landstrom and Lukas Kanter
Advokatbyran Wallin & Partners AB
Birger Jarlsgatan 27
111 45 Stockholm

THE THING
Recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards; now ask for
rejection.

Villa Europa Sp. z o. o. (Villa Europa) has applied for the recognition
and enforcement of an arbitral award to be delivered by the Pan-European
Court of Arbitration on April 21, 2022 in Warsaw, Poland.

Henrik Hult has contested the application.

The parties have requested compensation for legal costs.

Henrik Hult has requested that the Court of Appeal oblige Krzysztof
Sienicki, together with Villa Europa, to compensate Henrik Hult for
his legal costs in accordance with ch. 18. Sections 6 and 7 of the Code
of Procedure.

Krzysztof Sienicki has contested Henrik Hult's claim.

A question has arisen as to whether
Villa Europa's application should be rejected.

After presentation, the Court of Appeal considers the following

DECISION (to be announced 2024-02-15)

1. The Court of Appeal rejects that of Villa Europa Sp. submitted
application.

2. Villa Europa Sp. zo. o. shall compensate Henrik Hult's court costs
with SEK 280,000, regarding attorney's fees, and EUR 3,000 plus interest
on the amounts according to Section 6 of the Interest Act from the date
of this decision until payment is made.

3. The Court of Appeal rejects Henrik Hult's request that Krzysztof
Sienicki be ordered to pay legal costs jointly and severally with Villa
Europa Sp. z o. o.

The reasons for the decision

Legal starting points Section 53 of the Arbitration Act (1999:116) states
that a foreign arbitration award based on an arbitration agreement must
be recognized and enforced in Sweden, unless otherwise provided for in
§§ 54-60. That it is a question of such a judgment as referred to in
Section 53 of the Arbitration Act is a necessary process condition in
cases of recognition and enforcement. The court must therefore examine
ex officio if it is a question of a (foreign) arbitration award. It is
up to the applicant to demonstrate that this is the case. (See NJA 2017
p. 198 p. 11 and 14.)

The question of whether it is a judgment according to Section 53 of the
Arbitration Act must in principle be decided according to the legal
order that applies to the arbitration or would have applied to it if
it had been an arbitration. It is up to the Court of Appeal to try to
find out the content of the applicable legal order. If the legal order
cannot be determined or its content cannot be clarified, the question
will be examined based on Swedish law, however, taking into account
what may have been expressed in various foreign legal sources. If an
internationally accepted opinion exists, it should be followed, as long
as it harmonizes reasonably well with the Swedish legal system. (See
NJA 2017 p. 198 p. 12.)

Thus, the question of whether this case is an arbitral award must be
decided in the first place in accordance with Polish law, since the filed
document purports to be an arbitral award delivered in Warsaw. Poland
has ratified the 1958 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement
of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention). The Court of Appeal
therefore assumes that internationally accepted principles regarding
the application of the convention are part of Polish law.

The concept of arbitration is not defined in the New York Convention. In
foreign practice, however, what could be called fabricated arbitrations,
i.e. documents which look like real arbitrations but which have been added
to a sham procedure, are considered not to constitute real arbitrations
in the sense of the New York Convention. A fabricated arbitral award
entered into with a fraudulent purpose is thus not to be considered an
arbitral award at all (See Bom, International Commercial Arbitration,
3rd ed., 2021, p. 3165 £ and p. 3185 f. with references.)

The legal status of the act invoked

The investigation

Villa Europa has relied on a certified copy of the document allegedly
constituting an arbitration award, drawn up in Polish, and a translation
of the document into Swedish. Furthermore, the company has submitted a
certified copy of the parties' agreement with an arbitration clause.

Henrik Hult has argued that the action invoked by Villa Europa is not
a real arbitration award. In support of this objection, Henrik Hult has
essentially stated that the so-called Pan-European Court of Arbitration
was created by Villa Europa with the purpose of faking an arbitration
award in order to demand from Henrik Hult, and a long list of other
people, unreasonably large sums of money for services that they neither
requested or deliberate agreed upon.

Henrik Hult has submitted extensive research in support of the fact
that it is not a question of a real arbitration award. The evidence
mainly focuses on the circumstances surrounding the Pan-European Court of
Arbitration in Warsaw and the institute's relationship with Villa Europa,
the parties' arbitration agreement and the conditions surrounding Villa
Europa's underlying payment claims against Henrik Hult and the design
and content of the arbitration award.

The Pan-European Court of Arbitration and its relationship to Villa Europa

The Court of Appeal notes that it is undisputed between the parties
that it was Villa Europa that registered the arbitration institute's
website. The company has explained this by saying that the development
and registration of websites is part of its business.

According to the investigation submitted by Henrik Hult, the website
was registered on September 28, 2021. The Court of Appeal notes that
the website was thus only registered approximately one year after the
parties should have entered into the agreement that Villa Europa believes
was the basis for the arbitration board's jurisdiction.

Furthermore, the letters that Villa Europa has claimed that the arbitral
tribunal sent to Henrik Hult during the arbitration are postmarked in
the town of Podkowa Lesna. However, the arbitral tribunal must have
had its seat in Warsaw. Villa Europa's stand representative Krzysztof
Sienicki lives in Podkowa Lesna.

Taken together, these circumstances are such that the Court of Appeal
finds reason to doubt whether the Pan-European Court of Arbitration
exists at all.

The parties' arbitration agreement

In its application to the Court of Appeal, Villa Europa has stated
that the arbitration was invoked by the company in accordance with an
arbitration clause in an agreement dated June 26, 2020. The agreement
that Villa Europa subsequently invoked in the case must instead have been
signed by Henrik Hult on September 9, 2020. Henrik Hult has objected that
he did not take part in any agreement from the first-mentioned date and
that he may indeed have signed a document at some point but that it had
a different content.

The Court of Appeal notes that Henrik Hult's signature is only on the
last page of the agreement dated September 9, 2020, while Villa Europa's
representative signed all pages, including the page where the arbitration
clause referring to the Pan-European Court of Arbitration is found. As
Henrik Hult pointed out, there is another version of the agreement, where
the page signed by Henrik Hult is the same, but the other pages have a
different content of the agreement. These conditions are compatible with
Henrik Hult's claim that the agreement invoked by Villa Europa has been
manipulated afterwards. Villa Europa's underlying payment requirements

Villa Europa's claim means that the parties entered into an agreement
which entails a payment obligation for Henrik Hult of approximately 17,300
euros because he, several months earlier, gave a lecture at an academic
webinar arranged by Villa Europa and that Villa Europa recorded the
lecture, edited the recording and published it on Youtube. The Court of
Appeal finds it unlikely that a researcher would enter into an agreement
on those terms. What Villa Europa stated about the lecture being recorded
twice and that the recording was subsequently processed manually
frame by frame does not change this assessment.

It has also emerged that similar demands have been made by Villa Europa
against around thirty researchers in Europe and that at least several of
these have disputed the demands with the same objections as Henrik Hult.

The design and content of the arbitration award

The Court of Appeal notes that the wording of several of the points in
the judgment are unclear as regards the more detailed meaning of the
obligation. Even otherwise, the arbitration award gives the impression
of having been written by a person who does not have the competence that
an arbitrator can be expected to have. The Court of Appeal considers
that the design and content of the referred arbitration award warrants
questioning whether it is the result of a real arbitration procedure.

The Court of Appeal's summary assessment

As previously established, it is Villa Europa that must demonstrate
that its application relates to an arbitration within the meaning of the
Arbitration Act. Through the investigation in the case, remarkable and
troubling circumstances have emerged for which Villa Europa has not given
any reasonable explanations. In these circumstances, the Court of Appeal
considers that Villa Europa has not shown that it is an arbitration award
within the meaning of the Arbitration Act. Villa Europa's application
must therefore be rejected.

Legal costs

As Villa Europa's application is to be rejected, the company must replace
Henrik Hult for his. court costs. Henrik Hult has claimed compensation
of SEK 306,425 in respect of attorney's fees and EUR 3,000 in respect
of expenses.

Of the claimed amount, SEK 306,425 refers to attorney's fees corresponding
to 80 hours of work. Villa Europa has not accepted any amount that is
reasonable in and of itself The Court of Appeal notes that the case has
been going on for a long time and that the exchange of letters and the
investigation has become relatively extensive. A smaller part of the
compensation Henrik Hult commits, however, refers to the production of
opinions and investigations that he submitted in the case without having
been subpoenaed. Against this background, the Court of Appeal decides
that Henrik Hult must be compensated with a reasonably considered SEK
280,000 in respect of attorney's fees.

The cost of expenses is both reimbursable and reasonable and must be paid.

Henrik Hult has requested that the Court of Appeal order the deputy
Krzysztof Sienicki to answer, together with Villa Europa, for the
legal costs in accordance with ch. 18. Sections 6 and 7 of the Code of
Procedure. In support of his claim, he has essentially referred to the
fact that he considers he has shown that the application is based on
untrue claims about an arbitration document which is in fact a paper
product manufactured by Villa Europa.

The Court of Appeal has found that Villa Europa has not shown that it is
an arbitration award within the meaning of the Arbitration Act. However,
this does not mean that it has been shown that Villa Europa has made
claims that the company has realized are unfounded or that there has
otherwise been such action that constitutes a prerequisite for the
imposition of joint and several payment obligations. Henrik Hult's
claim must therefore be rejected.

HOW TO APPEAL, see Appendix A
Appeal no later than 14/03/2024
Trial permission is not required.

Lina Wogel
The protocol presented