Over the past two decades various national courts have repeatedly been asked to enforce arbitral awards that have previously been set aside in their country of origin. However, even today judgments in case law and opinions among arbitration practitioners continue to differ remarkably on the question of the (il)legitimacy of enforcement orders for such awards. As was demonstrated in the article by Christopher Koch, French courts have manifested their readiness to enforce annulled awards in principle, whereas others, like the U.S. courts, have shifted from an enforcement–friendly attitude to a rather more reluctant approach. The following article explores the constraints that confine enforcing courts’ discretion on enforcement and discusses the approaches taken by Austrian and German courts.
Journal of International Arbitration