Enforcement of foreign arbitral awards under the 2011 Act

The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 gave the New York Convention 1958 the force of law in Pakistan and vested exclusive jurisdiction over foreign awards in the High Courts. The typical posture is simple: an award creditor applies to the High Court for recognition and enforcement, filing the duly authenticated award and the arbitration agreement; the award debtor resists. The recurring question in the first decade of the Act was how much of the old domestic regime — the Arbitration Act 1940, with its broad review for "misconduct" — survived into the new one.

The Supreme Court answered: none of it. In Taisei Corporation v A M Construction Company [CITATION — TO BE VERIFIED], the Court confirmed the pro-enforcement architecture of the 2011 Act. The grounds for refusing enforcement are those in Article V of the Convention, they are exhaustive, and the burden of proving them lies on the party resisting the award. Public policy, the ground most often invoked, is to be read narrowly — it means the fundamental policy of Pakistani law, not any error a domestic court might have corrected. The enforcing court does not re-examine the merits, re-weigh the evidence, or substitute its reading of the contract for the tribunal's. Earlier High Court decisions that had imported the 1940 Act's standards into Convention cases no longer represent the law.

The practical rule, as of mid-2026: a party resisting a foreign award in Pakistan must bring itself within a specific Article V ground and prove it; everything else is noise. An award creditor should file in the High Court with jurisdiction, with the authenticated award, the agreement, and certified translations where needed. The limitation period for an enforcement application is [LIMITATION PERIOD UNDER THE 2011 ACT AND THE LIMITATION ACT 1908 — TO BE VERIFIED], and creditors should treat it conservatively.

Why it matters

Foreign counterparties price Pakistan risk by asking one question: if we win the arbitration, will the award be enforced? Under the current line of authority the answer is yes, through a defined procedure, with a narrow gate for resistance. That answer affects every arbitration clause we draft and every enforcement strategy we advise on, on both sides of the caption.