Litigation and Arbitration: The Best Procedural Strategy for Your Business

Civil and commercial litigation in Spain is governed by the Law on Civil Procedure (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, LEC, Law 1/2000), which establishes the procedural rules for ordinary and abbreviated proceedings before the civil and commercial courts. Commercial arbitration is governed by Law 60/2003 on Arbitration, which is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law and allows parties to agree to arbitration as an alternative to court proceedings, producing awards with the same binding force as a court judgment. Since Organic Law 1/2025 entered into force on 3 April 2025, prior attempt at an Adequate Dispute Resolution Mechanism (MASC) — including mediation — is a mandatory procedural requirement before filing most civil and commercial claims in Spain.

Our litigation team has represented companies in high-value disputes before Spain’s main courts and in international arbitrations, with a strategic approach that always prioritises the optimal economic outcome for the client.

Dispute Resolution as a Business Decision

Litigation and arbitration are not just legal processes — they are business decisions with financial, reputational, and relationship consequences that extend well beyond the courtroom or hearing room. The decision to initiate proceedings, to defend, to settle, or to pursue alternative resolution requires the same rigour as any major strategic choice. A poorly timed or poorly conceived legal action can destroy more value than the underlying dispute itself.

Our starting point is always the strategic assessment: What is the realistic range of outcomes? What is the true cost of each route, including management time and relationship impact, not just legal fees? Are there alternative paths — negotiation, mediation, contractual mechanisms — that can deliver an acceptable outcome faster and more cheaply? Only after that analysis do we recommend whether and how to proceed.

Evidence Is Won Before the Hearing

The outcome of commercial disputes is determined largely before the hearing date — by the quality of the evidence assembled, the selection of the right expert witnesses, and the coherence of the legal and factual narrative. Documentary evidence must be collected and preserved correctly (including electronic evidence, which is subject to chain-of-custody requirements). Expert witnesses in financial, technical, or sector-specific disputes must be identified early, briefed thoroughly, and prepared to withstand cross-examination.

In disputes arising from mergers and acquisitions — working capital adjustments, earn-out disputes, warranty claims — the financial dimension is frequently the most contested. We coordinate closely with forensic accountants, financial valuers, and sector experts to build a technically robust case that courts and arbitral tribunals can follow. Our transactional knowledge means we understand how the contested provisions were meant to work, which is critical to arguing their correct interpretation.

International Arbitration: Choosing the Right Institution and Rules

For cross-border commercial disputes, the choice of arbitral institution, seat, governing law, and arbitrators is as important as the substantive legal arguments. Different institutions have different strengths: the ICC for multi-jurisdictional, high-value disputes; the LCIA for English-law governed agreements; the CAM and CIMA for Spain-focused matters; ICSID for investment treaty arbitrations. The seat of arbitration determines which national courts have supervisory jurisdiction and which procedural law applies to the arbitration itself.

We advise clients on arbitration clause drafting before disputes arise — a clause that is technically defective or incomplete can make an award unenforceable — and manage the full arbitration process from constitution of the tribunal through to enforcement of the award. Where the counterparty is in a different jurisdiction, we coordinate with local co-counsel to manage any parallel proceedings and the recognition and enforcement process.

Preserving Value Through Mediation

We are advocates of mediation and other alternative dispute resolution methods when the circumstances are right. A commercial mediation, well-prepared and with the right mediator, can resolve in days what courts would take years to decide, at a fraction of the cost, and without the reputational exposure of a public proceeding. Where the parties have an ongoing relationship that both wish to preserve, mediation is almost always worth attempting before litigation. We prepare clients for mediation as rigorously as for trial, and our success rate in mediated settlements reflects that preparation.