Ana Belem Fernández Castro

El arbitraje se ha considerado como la vía idónea para resolver disputas mercantiles. Sin embargo, los pleitos de la Casa de la Contratación de Sevilla evidencian las dificultades a las que se enfrentaba esta práctica debido a la carencia de los árbitros de poderes coercitivos para exigir el cumplimiento de los laudos. Esto significaba que la ejecución de los mismos precisó de la intervención de los tribunales, lo cual desvirtúa el propósito del arbitraje como solución extrajudicial, simplificada y económica.

El arbitraje se ha considerado como la vía idónea para resolver disputas mercantiles. Sin embargo, los pleitos de la Casa de la Contratación de Sevilla evidencian las dificultades a las que se enfrentaba esta práctica debido a la carencia de los árbitros de poderes coercitivos para exigir el cumplimiento de los laudos. Esto significaba que la ejecución de los mismos precisó de la intervención de los tribunales, lo cual desvirtúa el propósito del arbitraje como solución extrajudicial, simplificada y económica.

This paper examines the jurisdictional strategies that merchants involved in Valencian maritime trade during the late sixteenth-century used to manage disputes arising from maritime conflicts. It is well known that Medieval and Early Modern merchants resorted to different institutional mechanisms for conflict management, but in the Valencian case we know nothing about how merchants selected and used the available institutions, how those institutions worked in practice and what their efficiency in handling conflicts was. In the following lines I am going to shed some light to these questions through the analysis of specific institutions accessible in the Kingdom of Valencia that according to the archival sources were commonly employed by merchants in conflict management, such as the foreign consul, the Consulate of the Sea, the Royal Audience of Valencia and the practice of arbitration.

This paper examines the role played by the proofs in the jurisdiction of the consulate of Seville during the last years of the 16 th century. Its purpose is to challenge the historiographical assumption that mercantile justice was summary, based on the principle of good faith among merchants that presupposed a simplified procedure free from long proving periods. Through the study of litigation in the consulate I am going to show how mercantile good faith coexisted with the judicial model of the ius commune, in which proofs were at the core of the judicial decision making. Even if this jurisdic-tional model affected trial's shortness and simplicity, sources show that in some cases litigants preferred it instead of a summary jurisdiction since it offered them enough legal certainty to invest and negotiate in long distance trade. In early modern Spain, consulates were commerce institutions created and administered by merchants in order to give unity to the regulation of commercial transactions, as well as for resolving conflicts between merchants via their own rules and customs. The principle Spanish commercial cities were host to these institutions. In contrast with the Aragonese crown, which had maintained consulates in cities like Barcelona, Valencia and Mallorca since the 13 th and 14 th