UK’s Sec­tion 39A Sum­mary Dis­pos­al and European En­force­ment Risk

De­vel­op­ment sum­mary

Eric Shahz­ar ex­am­ines the power con­ferred by sec­tion 39A of the UK Ar­bit­ra­tion Act 2025 on England-seated tribunals to dis­pose sum­mar­ily of claims, issues or de­fences with no real pro­spect of suc­cess. The power is con­di­tion­al on the parties having a reas­on­able op­por­tun­ity to make rep­res­ent­a­tions, while the en­force­ment of London awards in Europe is con­strained by the ‘unable to present the case’ stand­ard in Art­icle V(1)(b) of the New York Con­ven­tion.