EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Amr A Abbas, Ahmed Abdel Hakeem, Khaled Abou El Wafa and Adham Ahmed Saied, Matouk Bassiouny & Hennawy
cannot be subject to compromise, such as matters relating to crimes, status and family law. As regards the requirement that foreign arbitral awards must not violate public policy, if such violation is only partial – ie, that only part of the award violates public policy – the other parts of the award that do not violate public policy may still be enforced. This requires that the parts that may be enforced can be separated from the parts that violate public policy. In any event, for any foreign arbitral award to be enforced, it must be final. Egyptian courts have recently adopted a friendlier approach to arbitration. For instance, the court of appeal rendered a judgment enforcing a foreign arbi - tral interim measure issued by an ICC tribunal. The court found that the enforcement of interim measures follows the same procedures as those for final arbitral 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, with 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). However, 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 that it does not violate public policy rules. 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.
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