Under a court order which provided for an arbitration, the award of the umpire was to be made and published, ‘in writing, ready to be delivered to the parties . . ‘ The award was executed by the umpire in the presence of two witnesses to whom its contents were made known and was to be collected on the afternoon of the following day. One of the parties having died on the morning of that day, the question arose whether it had been ‘made and published’ in his lifetime.
Held: It had, Parke B. remarking: ‘it is only necessary that the act should be complete, so far as the arbitrator is concerned; that he should have done some act whereby he becomes functus officio and has declared his final mind.’
Alderson B. similarly observed: ‘the award is made and published, when the arbitrator, by some act, has expressed his final determination on the matters referred to him.’ The judgments in this case, which in any event depended on the award being ‘published’, certainly employed the term ‘functus officio’ but they in no way help the respondent. Indeed they seem to me to point strongly to the conclusion contended for by the appellant that it is the signature of the award that makes it complete so far as the arbitrator is concerned: see the interlocutory observation of Parke B. I do not, for my part, consider that it can be seriously open to doubt that Mr. MacCrindle had ‘declared his final mind’ when he signed the award in Paris.’
Parke B, Alderson B
[1840] EngR 32, (1840) 6 M and W 473, (1840) 151 ER 498
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Hiscox v Outhwaite (No 1) HL 29-Jul-1991
An arbitration award is perfected in the place where the arbitrator signs it, irrespective of where the arbitration to place. If the award is signed in a country party to the 1958 convention, being and forcible as a conventional Ward under the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 28 August 2021; Ref: scu.309458
