On 1 July 2026, the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration (SCCA) issued a country report covering arbitration in Saudi Arabia (Report). The Report was prepared in response to an invitation from the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) for Saudi Arabia to contribute to the revision of the UNCITRAL Digest of Case Law on the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (Digest). The Digest is a tool developed in 2001 to provide a structured overview of global judicial decisions and arbitral awards that interpret the UNCITRAL Model Law, with a view towards helping legal professionals understand how its provisions are applied worldwide.
The Report, being Saudi Arabia’s first contribution of its kind, performed a comprehensive study of the Saudi arbitration framework through a legislative analysis of the Saudi Arbitration Law (Arbitration Law) vis-à-vis the UNCITRAL Model Law and case law analysis of Saudi judicial practice. The Report further examined the provisions of the new draft of the Saudi arbitration law yet to be passed as of the date of this article (Draft Law).
Squire Patton Boggs Al-Akkas was invited by the SCCA among selected law firms to review the Report prior to its official release. In this article, we examine key topics, judicial precedents and trends in Saudi arbitration featured in the Report and how they compare to international practice.
