Angelika Hellweger explains when time begins to run to appeal an arbitral award. Is it the date on which the award is made? Or the date the award is communicated to the parties?
The Court of Appeal has looked at the question of when an award is rendered. It matters because on one interpretation the applicant could appeal the award, and on the other interpretation the applicant was time-barred.
The High Court held that time ran from the date when the award was made, rather than the date the award was provided to the parties. The Court of Appeal agreed.
Read the full decision here: Friedhelm Eronat v CNPC International (Chad) Ltd & Anor [2025] EWCA Civ 1054.
Brief background facts
In their contract, the parties agreed that either of them could appeal an award of the tribunal, so long as the appeal was within 30 days after the decision was rendered.
One party appealed the decision under section 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996. If the contractual time limit meant that the appeal had to be brought within 30 days from the date when the award was provided to the parties, the appeal was in time. But if it meant that time ran from the date when the award was made, the appeal was five days too late.
The arbitration in question was an English-seated arbitration in accordance with the LCIA Rules.
The award was dated 11 April 2024 and was signed by the arbitrators on that day. However, it was sent to the parties by the LCIA Secretariat on 16 April 2024.
Mr Eronat issued his arbitration claim form seeking to appeal against the award on 16 May 2024. This was 30 days after the receipts of the award, but 35 days after the award was made.
When is the award ‘rendered’?
On the one hand, it would make sense for time to run from the date when the award was communicated to the parties. That allows the losing party time to review the award, take advice, consider the cost implications, and prepare the necessary appeal documents. This was the applicant’s argument.
The judge agreed that the word ‘render’ or ‘rendered’, considered in isolation, is capable of referring to the date when the award was made, or to the date when it was provided to the parties.
However, in the context, it was clear that it meant the date the award was made. That was on the basis of five reasons:
- The Deed of Indemnity provided for arbitration. It included wording that “the arbitration tribunal shall conduct its session and render its decision in English.” This is unambiguous and can only refer to the making of the award.
- The LCIA Rules 1998 (which were current at the time of the parties’ contract) refer to a tribunal rendering an award in terms which clearly refer to the making of an award.
- The ICC rules that were current at the time of the parties’ contract also speak of the tribunal rendering its award in terms which can only refer to the making of the award.
- There was nothing unfair or unreasonable in the parties having agreed a right of appeal which was subject to a time limit which might start running before they were aware of the terms of the award. The parties would have contemplated that the transmission of the award by the LCIA would take place within a few days at most, which would leave sufficient time for the preparation of any appeal documents.
- The Arbitration Act 1996 distinguishes between the making of the award (Section 54) and its notification to the parties (section 55). The time for appeal runs from the date when the award is made and not from its notification to the parties (section 70(3)).
Analysis
Parties must be on the ball about when time starts to run for the purposes of appealing an arbitral award.
The outcome of this decision is not a hard and fast rule. In this case, time started to run on the date that the award was made. But it is also possible that time may start to run from the date that the award is communicated to the parties.
The Court will look at the wording in the various terms and conditions and contractual matrices to decide when time starts to run.
It is also worth noting that the Court will assume a depth of knowledge to the parties. In this case, the Court said that the parties would have had the LCIA Rules 1998 in mind when they concluded their contract. In reality, it is unlikely that the parties considered the precise meaning of ‘rendered’ in the LCIA Rules at the time, but they are taken to have understood them in the round when it came to the appeal.
Further, the Court brought in the ICC Rules. The parties did not contract on the ICC Rules, but these were ‘widely known’ in the field of international arbitration and demonstrate that this use of ‘rendered’ was a common and well understood use of language. Accordingly the ICC Rules were deemed to form part of the background of which the parties could be taken to have been aware.
Key takeaways
This latest decision underlines the importance of identifying key dates and acting in good time to avoid time bar issues. A party who wants to appeal an award should ensure it acts quickly in all cases. Pursuant to section 70(3) of the Arbitration Act 1996, any challenge under section 67 or section 68 must be brought within 28 days from the date the award is made.
This could be altered by agreement between the parties, but it is unusual to allow the time for appeal to be more than 30 days.
Parties should assume that time will start to run from the earliest date; i.e. the date that the award is made, rather than the date it is communicated to the parties.
