Transnational Coordination of Setting Aside and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards – A New Treaty and Approach to Reconciling the Choice of Remedies Concept, the Judgment Route, and the Approaches to Enforcing Awards Set Aside?

Abstract

The rendering of a final arbitral award can be the starting signal for a multiplicity of state court proceedings. Not all of those will be illegitimate, for instance if an award creditor needs to commence several enforcement proceedings in order to enforce the whole award. More critical, however, and more likely to invite abuse, is the relationship of setting aside and enforcement. Where an award debtor fails to request that an award be set aside, or fails to raise grounds for setting aside, or loses setting aside proceedings, should this award debtor be allowed to rely on those very same grounds again in subsequent enforcement proceedings? Or in turn, if the award is set aside, should the award creditor be allowed to enforce it? All this raises questions of how to coordinate setting aside and enforcement. While coordination mechanisms exist under domestic law, it is submitted that coordination at the transnational level leaves much to be desired. We will therefore take critical inventory of the current level of coordination at the domestic and the New York Convention level, assessing its respective strengths and weaknesses, also in light of well-known doctrines such as the choice of remedies concept and the judgment route. We will then propose wording for a new international treaty, complementing the New York Convention, to improve coordination of setting aside and enforcement and discuss the feasibility of such a project.