Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards in Austria

I. Introduction

A. History of the New York Convention and Purpose of this Article

Sixty years ago, on June 10, 1958, the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcmenet of Foreign Arbitral Awards ("New York Convention") was signed in New York and, later came into force on June 7, 1959. Initially, the New York Convention had 24 signatories. As of December 2018, the New York Convention has 159 members, making it one of the most important treaties in international law. In Austria, the New York Convention came into force on July 31, 1961.

The aim of the New York Convention is to facilitate the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. In order to do so, the main innovation of the New York Convention was that - in contrast to its predecessor, the 1927 Geneva Convention - it is no longer necessary to enforce arbitral awards a so-called "double- exequatur", proceedings where one had to get an arbitral award rendered enforceable in both the country where the award was made and then the country where enforcement was sought.

However, as shown in the past, the form requirements provided for in Article IV New York Convention can often lead to problems when trying to get foreign arbitral awards recognized and enforced in Austria. The purpose of the following article is to provide guidance on how to fulfil these form requirements, taking into account most recent Austrian case law.

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