English Commercial Court Addresses The Scope Of A Tribunal's Power To Correct Arbitral Awards Under The LCIA Rules 1998

In Mobile Telecommunications Co KSC v HRH Prince Hussam Bin Saud Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and others [2019] EWHC 3109 (Comm), the English Commercial Court (the Court) considered the scope of an arbitral tribunal's powers to correct an arbitral award under Article 27.1 of the LCIA Rules 1998.

The issue arose in the context of an application by Prince Hussam Bin Saud Bin Abdulaziz al Saud (Prince Hussam) to set aside an earlier court order which extended the deadline for a correction to an award under s79 of the English Arbitration Act 1996. The extension had been ordered to enable an LCIA tribunal (the Tribunal) to correct the language of a 2015 award (the Award) in favour of Mobile Telecommunications Co (MTC). Enforcement of the award in Saudi Arabia had previously been refused on the basis that the Award did not impose an explicit obligation to pay on Prince Hussam. The main question that arose in the application was whether the Tribunal had the power to issue the correction to the Award under Article 27.1 of the LCIA Rules 1998. The Court ultimately held that the Tribunal did have such a power in these circumstances and dismissed Prince Hussam's application.

Background

In December 2015, the Tribunal upheld a claim by MTC against Prince Hussam arising out of a 2010 loan agreement and issued an award finding that MTC was "entitled to payment" of over US$ 527 million. MTC subsequently sought to enforce the Award in Saudi Arabia. However, by its judgment of 29 August 2019, a Saudi court held that the Award was not enforceable because the wording used in the Award did not impose an "explicit obligation" to pay on Prince Hussam.

Shortly after the Saudi judgment, MTC applied to the Tribunal to include an express obligation to pay on Prince Hussam by way of a correction to the Award. This request was made pursuant to the 1998 LCIA Rules that were applicable to the dispute, which provide in Article 27.1 that a tribunal has the power to make such corrections in case of "any errors of computation, clerical or typographical errors or any errors of a similar nature". The Tribunal responded that it was 'functus officio' (i.e. its mandate had expired) in light of the 30-day deadline for corrections in Article 27.1 and that it could therefore not issue the correction unless this deadline was extended by the English courts. On 6 September 2019, MTC duly obtained an order to this effect from the English Court pursuant to the Court's powers under s79 of the...