Empirical Analysis of National Courts Vacatur and Enforcement of International Commercial Arbitration Awards

The empirical research in this article relies on a data set including all national court decisions on recognition, enforcement and setting aside (vacatur) of international commercial arbitration awards available in the Kluwer database that were rendered from 1 January 2010 to 1 June 2020. Within the time parameters of this study, there were 504 vacatur actions and 553 offensive recognition and enforcement actions. Those decisions were rendered by national courts in 74 different jurisdictions. The research coded every argument raised by defendants challenging the recognition and enforcement of awards based on grounds set forth in Article V of the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, as well as every argument raised by claimants to challenge awards based on the grounds set forth in Article 34 of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. In addition to these grounds, several others, outside the two instruments mentioned above, have been identified in the data set. The results of the research are presented in the article below. An overarching conclusion would be that courts overwhelmingly enforce foreign arbitration awards, in 73% of the cases in the data set, without significant variations between courts in various jurisdictions, and, respectively, overwhelmingly refuse to vacate arbitral awards, with courts vacating in only 23% of cases, again without significant variations between courts in various jurisdictions.