UAE Law and Practice Contributed by: Gerard Moore, Patricia Ugalde Revilla, Antonin Sobek and Alanood Sinjab, Mayer Brown
Onshore Article 41 of the UAE Arbitration Law requires an award: • to be in writing and signed (where there is more than one arbitrator, the majority’s signatures suf - fice, with reasons stated for any omission); • to be reasoned, unless the parties agree otherwise or the applicable law does not require it; and • to record the names, nationalities and addresses of the parties and arbitrators, the arbitration agree - ment, a summary of submissions, the operative part, and the date and seat. The award is deemed made at the seat regardless of where or how (including electronically) it is signed. It is no longer required that arbitrators sign every page of an award (see Decision No 1 of 2025 of the Federal- Local Judicial Principles Unification Authority, dated 4 August 2025). Offshore Article 38 of the DIFC Arbitration Law and Section 55 of the ADGM Arbitration Regulations impose substan - tially the same requirements, with the ADGM express - ly validating electronic signature and delivery. There are different time limits on delivery of the award onshore and offshore: • onshore – in the absence of an agreement, the award must be issued within six months of the first hearing, extendable by the tribunal for a further six months (and further by the parties or the court); and • offshore – the DIFC and ADGM laws impose no statutory time limit, although the institutional rules do (for example, the ArbitrateAD 2024 Rules require the award on the merits within nine months of the first case management conference, while the DIAC 2022 Rules require the final award to be issued within six months from the transmission of the file to the tribunal, and these time limits can be extended). 10.2 Types of Remedies Available remedies are primarily governed by the substantive law chosen by the parties (see Article
37 of the UAE Arbitration Law; Article 35 of the DIFC Arbitration Law; Section 49 of the ADGM Arbitration Regulations). The tribunal may grant any remedy permitted by that law. The ADGM Arbitration Regulations are the most explicit: Section 51 provides a non-exhaustive list of declaratory relief, including payment of a sum in any currency, and the same powers as the court to order a party to do or refrain from doing something, to order specific performance (other than of a contract relating to land) and to order the rectification, setting-aside or cancellation of a document. The UAE Arbitration Law and the DIFC Arbitration Law do not have express remedies provisions. The principal limits are UAE public policy and arbi - trability. An award that conflicts with public policy or concerns a non-arbitrable subject matter can be set aside by the court of its own motion (Article 53 (2) of the UAE Arbitration Law) or denied recognition (see Article 44 of the DIFC Arbitration Law; Section 61 of the ADGM Arbitration Regulations). 10.3 Recovering Interest and Legal Costs Under the onshore and offshore regimes, tribunals have broad powers to allocate and apportion costs. In practice, arbitral tribunals adopt the principle that costs follow the event and, where permissible, award costs to the successful party. Whether a party may recover its legal costs differs between the onshore and offshore regimes. • Onshore: Article 46 of the UAE Arbitration Law empowers the tribunal to allocate the costs of the arbitration. The Dubai Court of Cassation has repeatedly held that the parties’ legal representa - tives’ fees are not recoverable unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise (such agreement can be demonstrated by the parties agreeing to institutional rules that permit the recoverability of legal costs). • Offshore: the DIFC Arbitration Law (Article 38) and the ADGM Arbitration Regulations (Section 55) treat the successful party’s reasonable legal costs as recoverable, like the institutional rules (Article 36
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