Arbitration refers to proceedings before a “private” arbitral tribunal instead of a state court. Arbitration is permissible if the parties have previously contractually agreed upon such proceedings. In these cases, arbitration replaces the state courts. Recourse to state courts is then only permissible in exceptional cases.

Arbitration has a number of distinctive characteristics compared to state proceedings – from the choice of the panel of judges by the parties to the format of the proceedings. Mr Tiemann is a member of the German Institution for Arbitration (DIS) and has represented clients in numerous arbitration proceedings.