[Home] [Databases] [WorldLII] [Search] [Feedback] New Zealand Law Commission

[Database Search] [Name Search] [Previous] [Next] [Download] [Help]

10 Requests for interpretation

196 THE ISSUE is whether a request for an interpretation of an award needs the agreement of both parties, or whether one party may unilaterally make such a request. In paragraphs 55–57 of our preliminary paper we said:

55 Article 33(l) provides:

33. Correction and interpretation of award: Additional award

(1) Within 30 days of receipt of the award, unless another period of time has been agreed upon by the parties,

(a) A party, with notice to the other party, may request the arbitral tribunal to correct in the award any errors in computation, any clerical or typographical errors, or any errors of similar nature:

(b) If so agreed by the parties, a party, with notice to the other party, may request the arbitral tribunal to give an interpretation of a specific point or part of the award.

If the arbitral tribunal considers the request to

be justified, it shall make the correction or give the interpretation within 30 days of receipt of the request. The interpretation shall form part of

the award.

56 Under the article, the arbitrator may be requested to attend to the matters in article 33(l)(a) by only one of the parties. However, a request to give an interpretation must be agreed to by all of the parties. The issue is whether it should be sufficient for one of the parties to make such a request.

57 The competing arguments can be summarised briefly as follows:

• There is a concern that if all parties do not agree to the interpretation process, then one party could use the procedure to prolong or reopen a concluded dispute. The concern is alleviated to some extent by the need for the arbitral tribunal to be satisfied that the request is justified and by the short time within which a request can be made.
• Alternatively, it is said that if a significant question arises which can be clarified readily by the arbitral tribunal, in order to promote finality the tribunal should be allowed to give the interpretation, which it favours.

197 Three submissions addressed this issue. None favoured any amendment to Article 33. The main reasons for not intervening can be summarised as follows:

• The interpretation procedure can be used by a disgruntled party to reopen a case which it has lost, cause delay or harass the arbitral tribunal. Such an approach is contrary to the desirability of finality.
• While one party may request a correction without consent from the other party that is seen to be justified on the basis of a “slip” provision. An expedient method to resolve arithmetical or typographical errors and to restore the true intention of the arbitral tribunal’s decision is quite different in kind from a decision which, under the guise of the request for interpretation, in effect asks the arbitral tribunal to reopen the case.
• No existing problems have been identified with Article 33: we draw this information from the lack of any specific problems identified by submitters and from the informal consultation undertaken at the NZLS seminars.
• The underlying jurisdiction of an arbitral tribunal is based on the agreement of the parties and it is open to the parties to agree, in advance, if they wish an arbitral tribunal to have power to interpret its award on request.²¹¹ It is also open for the parties to agree to extend or truncate the period of time within which interpretation of an award could be requested.²¹²

198 We are convinced by these submissions and recommend no change to the law.