Grand Court grants leave to enforce a foreign interim arbitration award

• Cayman Islands Court confirms it has jurisdiction to enforce interim arbitration awards in foreign seated arbitrations 
  
  
• Parties to arbitrations in possession of an interim award will not have to apply for free standing interim relief from the Cayman Court or otherwise await the final determination of the arbitration in order to secure effective real world relief. There are, however, circumstances where a free-standing injunction in support of a foreign seated arbitration may be appropriate. 
  
  
• The decision is consistent with the pro-enforcement approach of the Court tin keeping with the policy underlying the New York Convention. 

On 3 February 2023 the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands delivered a judgment in the matter of Nasser Sulaiman HM Al Haidar v Jetty Venkata Uma Mahewshawara Rao (FSD 328 OF 2022 (IKJ)) explaining its decision to grant leave to enforce an interim award made in the course of a foreign arbitration. Whilst the application was made ex parte, and dealt with on the papers without an oral hearing, Kawaley J nevertheless issued a full ruling setting out his reasons for the decision, there having been no published Cayman Islands case dealing with the enforceability of interim awards.

The Court reiterated that the general approach of the Court to arbitral awards was pro-enforcement in keeping with the policy underlying the New York Convention, the expectation being that the majority of applications for leave to enforce would be straightforward and that the limited grounds upon which enforcement might be refused would be construed narrowly.

Read the full advisory