FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Barbara Levy, Paul Talbourdet and Alison Vogt, De Pardieu Brocas Maffei
ceedings may not be great, even if the award creditor is represented by a lawyer. As a matter of principle, the party wishing to enforce an international arbitral award must produce the award together with the arbi - tration agreement translated into French, so the fees of a certified translator should be taken into account. It may take only a few weeks to obtain an exequatur of an arbitral award. The costs and timeframe for enforcing arbitral awards will depend on a wide range of factors, including – in particular – the nature of the enforcement measure, how easy it is to determine the debtor’s assets, and the nature and location of those assets (especially in the case of foreign awards). 4.6 Challenging Enforcement of Arbitral Awards Service of the arbitral award is significant under French law, as this will determine the time period for exercis - ing any rights of recourse against the arbitral award. Only ordinary recourses are dealt with in this sec - tion. Applications for the revision of an arbitral award ( recours en revision ) and applications by which third parties may challenge an arbitral award ( tierce opposi- tion ) will not be addressed hereinafter. Domestic Awards As regards domestic awards, an appeal (if the possi - bility of such a recourse has been agreed between the parties) or an action for setting aside must be brought before the court of appeal in whose jurisdiction the arbitral award was issued. These recourse actions are admissible as soon as the award has been given, until the end of a one-month period starting from the service of the award (or three months for parties domi - ciled abroad). Appeals and actions for setting aside are brought, managed and determined according to common French rules governing procedure in con - tentious matters before the court of appeal. There - fore, they are subject to the reform of the appeal’s procedure, resulting from Decree No 2023-1391 of 29 December 2023, applicable to appeals lodged from 1 September 2024. According to Article 1495 of the Civil Procedure Code, appeals in the arbitra - tion field are subject to the provisions of Articles 900 to 930-1 of said code. This means that appeals for
annulment, appeals against exequatur orders, and appeals against domestic awards are all affected by the reform. Attention is drawn to the provisions of Arti - cle 901 aforementioned in the context of an appeal against an exequatur order. There are six grounds on which the court of appeal may deny the enforcement of a domestic arbitral award, as follows: • the arbitral tribunal wrongly upheld or declined jurisdiction; • the arbitral tribunal was not properly constituted; • the arbitral tribunal ruled without complying with the mandate conferred upon it; • due process was violated; • recognition or enforcement of the award is contrary to public policy; or • the award has failed to state the reasons on which it is based, or does not indicate the date of the award or the name of the arbitrator(s) who made it, or does not bear the required signature(s), or was not made by way of majority voting. It should be underlined that, in principle, parties are deemed to have waived their right to subsequently rely on any irregularities that they knowingly – and without legitimate reason – refrained from raising before the tribunal. In a judgment rendered on 20 March 2024, the Cour de cassation stated that this is considered as a ground of inadmissibility in both domestic and international arbitration. This is not limited to proce - dural irregularities but also applies with regard to all of the available grounds to set aside an award, with the exception of public policy grounds. Appeals and actions to set aside a domestic award lead to a suspension of enforcement, unless the award has been rendered with the provisional enforcement. International Awards As regards international arbitral awards, whether obtained in France or abroad, the time period for applying for the arbitral award to be set aside is one month following service of the exequatur (or three months for parties domiciled abroad). There is no option to challenge an international award without an exequatur. Therefore, there is no preventative
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