Arbitration and Conciliation Act- Arbitral Award (Meaning, Types, Form, Validity)

Introduction

It is a conclusive determination of question, issues or dispute brought forward to the arbitral tribunal.

Tribunal will give reasonable opportunity to all parties, it will hear all parties then finally come to conclusion about award or final decision.

In earlier post, wherein we have discussed proceedings of arbitration, we know one party submit for claim and other party defend it. Arbitral award is final determination, whether to grant a claim, or refuse a claim, or a decision about rights and liabilities of parties in disputes which are brought forward to arbitral tribunal.

Below are some actions which arbitral tribunal can take based on proceedings, hearing and evidence produced before it.

  • the tribunal may order the payment of a sum of money (conventional damages)
  • the tribunal may make a "declaration" as to any matter to be determined in the proceedings
  • in most jurisdictions, the tribunal has the same power as a court to: 
    • order a party to do or refrain from doing something ("injunctive relief") 
    • to order specific performance of a contract
    • to order the rectification, setting aside or cancellation of a deed or other document.

Kinds of Awards

Final Award

Final award is an award that is "Final"!!  This is an award which is made with requirements of law including signature, reason, date(For interest calculation) and delivery , and would be final adjudication on dispute submitted to arbitration tribunal.

Interim Award

Sometimes it becomes necessary to grant a temporary relief to a party. Take an example of dispute between Nirav and Vijay. Nirav is retail trader in beers, and Vijay is supplier. Vijay is not performing his obligation of supply of beers due to which Nirav is suffering loss daily. In this case, tribunal can ask Vijay to start supply immediately or may ask to pay some of the loss incurred by Nirav, until final decision is made as to how much loss Nirav had incurred and dispute thereto.

Issue will continue till final award is granted. This award will be in force till final award is conferred.

This is also a case, when multiple disputes are in question, and tribunal grant relief in some of the dispute before final orders.

There are below interim award
  • Which will remain in force till final award is granted.
  • In case of multiple dispute say D1,D2,D3, if award is granted for one dispute say D1, then this will be final with respect to that dispute , D1 in this case.

Settlement Award

Parties again, if tired of process and proceedings, and want to make settlement, they can go to arbitrator, saying that they wanted to settle the matter. In such a case Arbitrator will facilitate the settlement among parties. Once both the parties arrived at acceptance of some award, such an award would be settlement award. Also, such settlement could also be made of award, if there are multiple dispute, and settlement is arrived for one of the dispute.

Additional Award

For example there is dispute between Nirav and Vijay, and both go to arbitrator. Nirav claims damages of 10 Lakh Rs from Vijay. Arbitrator grant claim of Nirav. Later Nirav figured out that damages are more say 12 Lakh Rs, then in such case arbitrator can issue an additional award of 2 Lakh Rs.

There is catch however, the request for additional award has to made withing 30 days after final award is granted. Section 33(4) specifies this time limit

Characteristics of Arbitral Award to be Valid

First, Section 31(1)(1) requires that award must be signed, in writing and dated. Signature is important, and it should be of majority of arbitrators. If dissenting arbitrator don't sign the award it is well and good. Date is important to determine validity, time limit of appeal etc. 

Second, if there are more than one member, then decision of award must be agreed by majority of the arbitrator.

Third, Whatever the award given, reason for that must be stated in an award.  However, parties can agreed that mentioning of reason in arbitral award is not mandatory, in that case, it won't be mandatory of tribunal to mention the reasons.

Fourth, award should be clear and there should be no ambiguity as to awards. Kehna kya chahte ho  should not be reaction of the reader of the award.

Fifth, It is important that award should be enforceable and party have capacity to perform or against the public policy. Impossible award or illegal award would be void or set aside.

These are some of the characteristics for valid arbitral award.

Content of Arbitral Award


Tribunal can also specify below things
  • Party entitle to cost
  • The party who shall pay the cost
  • The amount of costs or method of determining that amount 
  • The manner in which such cost shall be paid
What is Cost here ?

It  includes below things
  • The fees and expenses of the arbitrators and witnesses
  • Legal fees and expenses
  • Any administration fees of the institution supervising the arbitration
  • Any other expense incurred in connection with the arbitral proceedings and the arbitral awards




Comments

Post a Comment

Followers

Popular posts from this blog

Privileges and Immunities to Administration in Suits

Introduction You know government can enter into contracts. Government can start some business. It mean government can sue other people, or you can sue the government. Before you initiate a legal proceedings against government, or even after legal proceedings are initiated, there are some relaxations to government.( OK, we will use Government/Administration as per our discretion interchangeably in this post, but they will mean the same ). So, it might happen that to prove something you may need a document or evidence, but government may be given exemption to produce evidence in that regard. Let's take one example.  General law is that burden of proof is on prosecution. Meaning, the one who accuses other  needs to prove the crime/offence by other. But when government accuses you of Sedition, you have to prove your innocence, burden of proof is on YOU. This is scary, as many times government in power just accuses people of sedition who opposes their ideas/policies, and put opponents i
Read more

Legal History-Administration of Justice in Bombay (1668-1726)

Image
Story About Bombay In 1534, Portuguese acquired Bombay from Local Hindu Raja. Then Bombay was given to King Charles II as dowry in his sister's marriage to in 1661. In 1668 Bombay was given to rent to East India Company for a rent of 10  £ . By today's exchange it would be around 100 Rs. So  yes, Bombay was given on rent to East India Company for the price of 10 Vada-Pav. Administration of Bombay was subordinate to Surat back then. After renting it, company issued a charter in 1668 granting company some rights to make laws to deal with Bombay. Like Administration in Madras, development of Earlier administration could be studied in 3 stages. First Stage: 1670-1683 (Aungier Eara) During this period Bombay was subordinated to Surat. The Governor of Surat was ex-officio Governor of Bombay, though Bombay had Deputy Governor and Council. Gerald Aungier brought some changes in Administration of justice. Two plans, i.e plan of 1670 and plan of 1672 made progress in sou
Read more

Civil Procedure Code - Summoning and attendance of Witness (Order 16)

Image
There are tons of stages after plaint/WS is submitted and final judgment is given. Below are certain stages. In this blog We will deal with Order 16 i.e Summoning and attendance of witness. Order 16 have 21 rules. These rules mainly deals with How to summon the witness ? Who can summon the witness ? What if witness do not appear after summons ? How Summons are to be served ? Who will bear the cost when witness appears? All in all, it deals with below things: Now party can give a list of witness to court to be summoned or court can sometime on it's own accord order the attendance of witness or production of documents from Witness as per Rule 14 of Order 21. General Procedure When Court summon on the request of parties, procedure is something like First party will submit the list of witness to court withing 15 days of settlement of issues. Court will issue summons based on list. Witness can attend without summons also as per Rule 1A Court issues the
Read more