ECUADOR Trends and Developments Contributed by: Jorge Sicouret Lynch, Víctor Hugo Sicouret Zea, Karla Condo and Carlos Correa, Coronel & Pérez
• failure to summon the respondent legally with the statement of claim, resulting in a violation of the right of defence; • failure to notify one of the parties of the tribunal’s decisions, thereby impairing the right of defence; • failure to convene the tribunal, notify such conven- ing, or take evidence despite the existence of facts requiring proof; • inconsistency of the award, where it addresses matters not submitted to arbitration or grants more than what was requested; and • violations of the procedures established by law or by the parties for the appointment of arbitrators or the constitution of the arbitral tribunal. These grounds, as is evident, are purely procedural in nature and exclude any form of substantive review. Accordingly, the annulment action does not operate as a mechanism to correct errors in the assessment of evidence or in the legal reasoning of the arbitral tribunal, but rather as a formal procedural control. ECC case law has further held that the grounds for annulment must be interpreted strictly and may not be raised ex officio by the annulment judge. In Deci- sion No 2727-17-EP/24 (March 2024), for instance, the ECC clarified that Article 31 (d) of the Arbitration Act must be confined to ultra petita and extra petita defects, excluding questions relating to the arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction. Likewise, in Decision No 708- 22-EP/25 (November 2025), with respect to Article 31 (c), the ECC held that annulment judges are limited to verifying the existence of admitted evidence and whether such evidence was taken or, if not, whether its omission was justified. Accordingly, defects in the taking of evidence – namely, cases where evidence was in fact taken but allegedly improperly – fall outside the scope of Article 31 (c). Alongside annulment, the extraordinary protection action operates as a strictly residual mechanism of review. It allows challenges to arbitral awards before the ECC only in cases of serious constitutional viola- tions and, as a rule, after the exhaustion of ordinary remedies – including annulment –, unless the alleged violation falls outside the grounds of Article 31. This may arise, for example, in evidentiary matters not cov- ered by Article 31 (c). In such cases, defects in the
taking of evidence that may have compromised the right of defence or due process, must be addressed, if at all, through an extraordinary protection action. The ECC has emphasised that its role in this con- text is not to review the legal correctness of arbitral decisions, but only to verify arbitrariness or manifest violations of due process. Accordingly, constitutional review through an extraordinary protection action does not alter the deferential approach to arbitral tri- bunals but operates as a residual safeguard for excep- tional cases. Enforcement of Arbitral Awards In parallel to the restrictive configuration of ex post judicial review, arbitral awards in Ecuador are enforced under the same terms as judicial decisions, without any substantive review. Opposition to enforcement is limited to grounds related to payment or extinction of the debt, as well as others expressly provided for in the COGEP, such as settlement or the loss or destruc- tion of the thing due. This reinforces the logic of mini- mal judicial intervention at the post-award stage. The regime for foreign arbitral awards, on the other hand, has evolved notably in recent years. When the COGEP was enacted in 2015, such awards were subject to prior “homologation.” This was a judicial process akin to exequatur and was required before enforcement. A legislative reform in 2018 reversed this approach by excluding foreign arbitral awards from the homologation regime and equating them with domestic awards, which, as noted, are enforced as judicial decisions. However, due to a shortcoming in the reform, Article 363 (5) of the COGEP retained a reference to homologation of such awards. This cre- ated uncertainty and, in practice, was used as a basis to ask for homologation as a precondition for their enforcement. This ambiguity was resolved by the ECC in its recent case law. In Decision No 3232-19-EP/24 (May 2024), it held that homologation constitutes an “unreasonable barrier” to the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, contrary to the rights to legal certainty and effective judicial protection. This position was reaffirmed in Decisions No 34-23-CN/24 (September 2024) and 6-22-IN/25 (May 2025), consolidating the view that
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