An Additional Arbitral Award constitutes one of the limited exceptions to the principle of functus officio, under which an arbitral tribunal’s mandate comes to an end once it renders the final award, thereby exhausting its jurisdiction and relinquishing authority over the arbitral proceedings. Recognizing that certain post-award matters may nonetheless require the tribunal’s intervention, the Saudi legislature has carved out a number of statutory exceptions to this principle.
Under the Saudi Arbitration Law, these exceptions are as follows:
- Interpretation of an arbitral award, pursuant to Article 46 of the Saudi Arbitration Law.
- Correction of an arbitral award, pursuant to Article 47 of the Saudi Arbitration Law.
- Issuance of an Additional Arbitral Award, pursuant to Article 48 of the Saudi Arbitration Law.
The last of these applies where the arbitral tribunal has inadvertently failed to decide one or more claims that were properly submitted during the proceedings. In such circumstances, and upon the request of a party, the tribunal may issue an Additional Arbitral Award addressing the omitted claims without reopening matters that have already been determined.
This article examines the legal framework governing Additional Arbitral Awards under the Saudi Arbitration Law, with particular focus on the circumstances in which such awards may be issued, the procedural requirements governing their issuance, and the legal issues arising from their application.
Article 48 of the Saudi Arbitration Law provides as follows:
1. Either party to the arbitration may, even after the expiry of the arbitration period, request the arbitral tribunal, within thirty (30) days of receiving the arbitral award, to issue an Additional Arbitral Award in respect of claims that were submitted during the proceedings but were inadvertently omitted from the award. Before submitting such a request to the arbitral tribunal, the requesting party must notify the other party at the address specified in the arbitral award.
2. The arbitral tribunal shall issue its decision on the request within sixty (60) days from the date on which the request is submitted. Where necessary, the tribunal may extend this period by a further thirty (30) days.
The foregoing provision establishes a narrowly tailored exception to the functus officio doctrine, empowering the arbitral tribunal to remedy an inadvertent omission without reopening the merits of issues that have already been decided. Its purpose is not to permit a reconsideration of the award, but rather to ensure that every claim properly submitted during the arbitration is fully adjudicated.
A close reading of Article 48 reveals that the Saudi legislature did not characterize an Additional Arbitral Award as a supplementary or complementary award to the final award. This is particularly noteworthy given that, in the context of interpreting an arbitral award, Article 46(3) of the Saudi Arbitration Law expressly provides:
“The award issued for the purpose of interpretation shall form an integral part of the arbitral award that it interprets, and the provisions applicable to that award shall apply accordingly.”
The absence of comparable language in Article 48 indicates that the legislature deliberately refrained from treating an Additional Arbitral Award as an integral part of the original final award. This distinction gives rise to two important legal consequences.
- First, an Additional Arbitral Award constitutes an independent arbitral award, separate and distinct from the award that finally disposed of the dispute. Nevertheless, it remains subject to the same legal regime governing final arbitral awards, except with respect to the time limit for its issuance. This is expressly confirmed by Article 16 of the Implementing Regulations, which provides:
“The provisions governing arbitral awards under the Law shall apply to an Additional Arbitral Award, except for those relating to the time limit for issuing the award.” - Secondly, because an Additional Arbitral Award is not deemed to form part of the original final award, any application for annulment or recognition and enforcement must be brought independently of the proceedings relating to the original award. In other words, the Additional Arbitral Award gives rise to its own legal remedies and procedural consequences, rather than being treated as a mere extension or continuation of the original award.
With respect, the Saudi legislature may be criticized for not expressly providing that an Additional Arbitral Award forms an integral part of the final award disposing of the dispute. This legislative omission has significant practical and procedural consequences.
Most notably, it places an unnecessary burden on the competent court, which may be required to entertain separate proceedings concerning the original award and the Additional Arbitral Award. Consequently, the court may be called upon to adjudicate two independent annulment actions or two separate enforcement proceedings: one relating to the final award and another relating to the Additional Arbitral Award.
This issue is further compounded by the fact that the competent court is typically composed of multiple judicial panels. As a result, the proceedings concerning the original award may be assigned to one panel, while those relating to the Additional Arbitral Award may be heard by another. Such a procedural framework results in an unnecessary duplication of judicial effort. As both proceedings arise from the same arbitration, involve the same factual background, and rely on substantially the same evidentiary record, there is little justification for allocating them to different judicial panels. The inevitable consequence is an inefficient use of judicial resources and an unnecessary prolongation of court proceedings.
More importantly, this approach creates the real possibility of conflicting judicial decisions. One judicial panel may annul the original arbitral award, while another upholds and orders the enforcement of the Additional Arbitral Award. Such an outcome is conceptually difficult to reconcile, as the Additional Arbitral Award derives its existence from the original award and is inherently dependent upon it. In legal terms, the accessory follows the principal (accessorium sequitur principale). It is therefore difficult to justify the enforcement of an Additional Arbitral Award where the underlying final award has already been set aside.
Consider, for example, a situation in which the final award is annulled because it violates Saudi public policy, while the judicial panel examining the Additional Arbitral Award fails to identify the same defect and consequently upholds its validity. The result would be two inconsistent judicial decisions arising from the same arbitral proceedings, thereby undermining legal certainty and procedural coherence. Such a scenario illustrates why treating the Additional Arbitral Award as an independent award, rather than as an integral part of the original award, may produce undesirable and inconsistent legal outcomes.
A practical solution to this issue, and one that would eliminate the uncertainty surrounding the legal nature of an Additional Arbitral Award, would be to amend Article 48 of the Saudi Arbitration Law by introducing a new paragraph (3) providing as follows:
“An Additional Arbitral Award issued by the arbitral tribunal shall form an integral part of the final arbitral award disposing of the dispute, and the provisions applicable to that award shall apply accordingly.”
Such a legislative amendment would align the treatment of Additional Arbitral Awards with that of interpretative awards under the Saudi Arbitration Law and would significantly enhance procedural efficiency and legal certainty.
This approach has already been adopted by the Jordanian legislature. Article 47(c) and (d) of the Jordanian Arbitration Law provides:
(c) An Additional Arbitral Award shall form an integral part of the arbitral award, and the provisions applicable to the arbitral award shall apply thereto.
(d) Where an action for the annulment of the arbitral award has already been filed or is pending before the issuance of the Additional Arbitral Award, the Additional Arbitral Award shall be joined to the existing annulment proceedings.
The Jordanian approach offers a more coherent procedural framework by expressly recognizing the Additional Arbitral Award as an integral part of the original award. This eliminates the need for separate annulment or enforcement proceedings, ensures that all post-award issues arising from the same arbitration are determined within a single judicial process, and substantially reduces the risk of inconsistent judgments. In doing so, it reinforces procedural economy, judicial efficiency, and legal certainty—objectives that are equally desirable within the framework of the Saudi Arbitration Law.
