Arbitration awards rarely overturned, courts stay hands-off

A new study confirms it is really hard to get an arbitration award thrown out. Reed Smith, working with LexisNexis, looked at challenge success rates in major legal hubs worldwide. England and Wales had the highest success rate at thirty-eight percent. Middle Eastern courts and New York had some of the lowest, with success around eight to eleven percent.

The volume of challenges varied a lot by location. Paris had the most applications with two hundred twenty two, followed by England and Wales with one hundred seventy eight, and Bahrain with one hundred thirty one. The process is also slow, typically taking over a year, and local cost rules influence how often parties even try. For example, Hong Kong's harsh cost penalties correlate with fewer cases compared to Singapore.

Analysts note the high success rate in England is likely tied to a specific legal avenue for appeals on legal error. In France, a low success rate persists despite many challenges, possibly because parties frequently argue on public policy grounds. The report's authors say these findings help discuss the system's overall fairness and the strength of final awards. Their data came from public court decisions over a recent six-year period.