The author argues that the pervasive tendency of likening arbitration to court proceedings prevents arbitration from delivering its full otential and thus from gaining wider acceptance in Spain. He develops his thesis by examining five aspects where he finds that arbitration is unduly assimilated to court proceedings, namely, (i) the equation of arbitral awards with court judgments; (ii) the attribution to arbitrators of a duty of “effective judicial protection” as per article 24 of the Spanish Constitution, (iii) the likening of the standards applicable to the reasons of an award to those applicable to the reasons of a court judgment, (iv) the confounding of administration of justice, in the sense of article 117 of the Spanish Constitution, and arbitration, and (v) the neglect of the true content of the concept of arbitrability. The author concludes by advocating a leaner, back–to–basics approach to arbitration.