Recognition or Enforcement and Annulment of Arbitral Awards in France: An Analysis of the Kluwer Research Results

The results of the Kluwer Research showed that, despite Paris being one of the most popular arbitration seats, French courts were the least likely to recognize and enforce an arbitral award, but also those with the highest number of vacated arbitral awards. The article analyses these results and offers some possible justifications for them. Concerning the enforcement and recognition procedures, the study only included reasoned decisions. The specificities of the French procedure however result in most of the decisions not being reasoned (the exequatur procedure is an ex parte procedure, only orders refusing the enforcement are reasoned) and the decision of the Court of Appeal dismissing an application to set aside an award (for awards rendered in France) has the effect of automatically enforcing the award. Therefore, analysing only reasoned decisions is not representative of the French courts’ approach. The article also analyses the grounds invoked by the claimants and their respective success rates, especially in comparison with other jurisdictions. Concerning the annulment procedures, France ranks as the country with the highest number of vacated awards. Indeed, while reviewing the number of annulment actions initiated in recent years before the Paris Court of Appeal, we concluded that the number of actions has doubled, with around 25% of successful annulment actions. As to the grounds for annulment relied upon by the claimants and their respective rates of success, the Kluwer Research revealed that the most relied upon grounds in France (authority not in accordance with the law and violation of public policy) were also the most successful ones. Offensive enforcement actions, exequatur, recognition, annulment, set-aside, France, Paris Court of Appeal, international public policy, empirical study, grounds for annulment