English court rejects arbitral appeal as out of time and refuses to grant 5 day extension

The decision in Friedhelm Eronat v CNPC International (Chad) Limited [2024] EWHC 2880 (Comm) underlines, with some emphasis, the strictness of the deadlines applied in relation to appeals brought under the Arbitration Act.

In this case the parties had contractually varied the period for making an appeal. They agreed on 30 days, overrising the 28 days in section 70(3) of the Arbitration Act.

The contractual 30-day period (as with the Act’s 28 day period) ran from the date the award was “made”, and not from when the parties received a copy of the award.

In this case the Award was made on 11 April, and was received on 16 April. The appellant to the English court filed its appeal on 16 May, which would have been 30 days from notification of the award, but outside that period when counting from the date of the award itself

The court granted an application to summarily dismiss the appeal as being time barred. The court also refused an application for a retrospective extension, holding that it was an “archetypal” case where no such extension should be given. This was in part because the party had not put in evidence explaining the delay, or why it was appropriate to grant the extension.

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