EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Amr A. Abbas, Ahmed Abdel Hakeem, Khaled Abou El Wafa and Adham Ahmed Saied, Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy
Conditions for Enforcement The Arbitration Law imposes the following conditions on the enforcement of arbitral awards. The award cannot be executed until 90 days have passed since notifying the losing party of the award. This is the period during which the losing party may file an annulment action against the arbitral award. Regarding the start of the 90-day period, a 2023 court of appeal ruling clarified that the time limit for filing an annulment lawsuit against an arbitral award com - mences from the day the official legal notification – accompanied by a copy of the award – was served on the respondent. The court further emphasised that an unofficial notification method, such as an email to the respondent, does not trigger the annulment action limitation period. Further, the court confirmed that the respondent’s prior unofficial knowledge of the arbitral award is not enough to start this period. In anoth - er recent case, the Court of Cassation rejected the enforcement of an arbitral award and did not grant an exequatur because the claimant failed to properly notify the debtors, meaning the timeline for filing the annulment case had not yet started. The court can only order enforcement of the award after verifying the following: • that the arbitral award does not contradict a judg - ment previously rendered by an Egyptian court on the subject matter in dispute; • that the arbitral award does not violate the public policy provisions of Egyptian law; and • that the arbitral award was properly notified to the party against which it was rendered. After 90 days have passed, the applicant will be enti - tled to seek official execution of the arbitral award (ie, request the issuance of an execution order, or “exequatur”), regardless of whether an annulment lawsuit is filed. Following the fulfilment of the above conditions and procedures, the competent court will issue its execution order (ie, exequatur) on the arbitral award.
awards (ie, through an order on application without notification or hearing of the parties). The court only required that the interim measure be final, based on a valid arbitration agreement, and not against public order, and that both parties had the opportunity to present their case. 4.4 Process of Enforcing Arbitral Awards A party seeking the enforcement of an arbitral award must obtain an exequatur from the competent court. The following provides a summary of the legal steps that should be followed to enforce an arbitral award. First, the applicant should serve the arbitral award – together with its Arabic translation – on the defendant through a court bailiff. Second, the applicant must then deposit with the secretariat of the competent court the original arbitral award (or a signed copy thereof), as well as an authenticated Arabic translation thereof. In this respect, a specific forum called the “Technical Office for Arbitration at the Ministry of Justice” has to review the arbitral award before accepting its deposit. Following the deposit of the arbitral award, a court notice should be served on the defendant to inform it of the deposit. An enforcement application must then be submitted to the president of the competent court – in the case of foreign arbitral awards, to the presi - dent of the Cairo Court of Appeal – together with the following documents: • the original award or a signed copy thereof; • a copy of the arbitration agreement; • an Arabic translation of the award, certified by a competent body (if the award was not made in Arabic); and • a copy of the procès-verbal attesting the deposit of the award pursuant to Article 47 of the Arbitration Law (Article 56 of the Arbitration Law). Finally, it should be noted that for a judge to approve the enforcement application and to issue an exequa - tur, the arbitral award subject to enforcement may not conflict with a prior judgment issued by Egyptian courts on the same subject matter in dispute and may not violate public policy rules.
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