UAE courts enforce arbitration clauses, but late pleas, optional wording and cheque enforcement can leave companies without one

The rule every court starts from: raise the clause first

An arbitration clause does not enforce itself. Under Article 8(1) of the Federal Arbitration Law (Federal Law No. 6 of 2018), a court asked to decide a dispute covered by an arbitration agreement must declare the claim inadmissible if the defendant asks it to before making any request or defence on the merits, unless the agreement is void or unenforceable.

The Federal Supreme Court applied the rule strictly in August 2020. In a Fujairah claim over an aircraft that was never delivered, the defence first disputed the claimant's documents as photocopies and sought dismissal, at case management and again before the trial court, and invoked the clause only later. The Court overturned the lower courts' finding that the claim was inadmissible: the plea is procedural, and a defendant who first addresses the merits gives it up for that dispute.

The Dubai Court of Cassation applies the same rule. In March 2025 it rejected an objection raised in December 2024 by a party that had argued the merits in a memorandum that September.

Conduct that counts as giving the clause up

A clause can also be lost through conduct. The Dubai Court of Cassation accepts that the right to arbitrate may be waived expressly or by implication, but implied waiver needs conduct that clearly shows the party meant to abandon the clause. Whether conduct meets that test is for the trial court, and the Court of Cassation leaves a reasoned finding alone.

Enforcing a cheque can be such conduct. In March 2025 the Court upheld a finding that a shipping company had impliedly given up the dispute clauses in its charter agreements, which pointed to the English High Court, to arbitration in Singapore for smaller claims, or to New York, by enforcing an AED 8 million cheque through the Dubai courts. The finding stood alongside other grounds, including the late objection noted above and the drawer's being outside the charters, but it shows that a trial court may treat enforcing a cheque in Dubai as a choice of forum, not just a collection step.

Earlier litigation can be too. In October 2024 the same court held that a developer which had defended a buyer's first court action on an off-plan sale contract, without invoking the contract's arbitration clause, could not rely on the clause when the buyer sued again on the same contract, even though the second action sought different relief.

Clauses that never closed the courts' door

Some clauses never bound anyone to arbitrate. The Dubai Court of Cassation held in April 2025 that an agreement to arbitrate is not presumed: its wording must make arbitration the only route. A building contract that sent certain disputes to the consultant as arbitrator, but let either party go to the courts if it rejected his decision, did not stop the contractor from suing.

A clause also binds only its parties. In the cheque case the drawer was outside the charters, and the Court restated that where some defendants are outside the clause and are genuine adversaries, the dispute is not split: the courts, which have general jurisdiction, hear all of it. Within a group, a cheque from an affiliate that did not sign the contract does not carry the contract's clause with it.

Some disputes cannot be arbitrated at all. Article 4(2) of the Arbitration Law bars arbitration on matters that cannot be settled by compromise, and Article 53(2) makes a court annul such an award of its own motion. In September 2024 the Dubai Court of Cassation held that a claim that a UAE national's 51 per cent holding was a nominal 'cover' under the former national-ownership rule required the court to apply a rule of public policy, so the arbitration clause in the memoranda could not keep it from the courts. The ruling concerned holdings created under the old rule; it does not decide whether disputes over nominee arrangements made after the rule was removed can be arbitrated.

Who signed, and with what authority

Article 4(1) of the Arbitration Law lets a company agree to arbitration only through a representative authorised to do so; otherwise the agreement is void. Companies that lose an award sometimes use this as an exit, arguing that the executive who signed lacked that authority.

The Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation rejected that argument on the facts in September 2024. A chief executive had signed a project agreement containing an arbitration clause; after losing the arbitration, the company said its board had never authorised him. The Court accepted that an agent needs special authority to agree to arbitration, but held that a company may ratify an unauthorised act by words or conduct, and that ratification counts as prior authority. The contract bore the company's unchallenged seal, the company proved no lack of authority, and it had taken part in the arbitration for months without objecting, so it had waived the point and ratified the clause.

Article 25 of the Arbitration Law reinforces this: a party that carries on with the arbitration knowing of a breach of the arbitration agreement, without objecting within the agreed period or, failing one, within seven days of learning of it (seven working days, as the Abu Dhabi court quoted the Arabic text), is taken to have waived the objection. The Abu Dhabi case was decided under the former Civil Transactions Law, but the 2025 Law, in force since 1 June 2026, keeps both halves of the rule: Article 870(1) requires special authority for acts beyond administration and preservation and names arbitration expressly, and Article 873 treats later ratification as prior authority.

After the award: the seat, the 30 days and enforcement

The Dubai Court of Cassation held in April 2025 that the court that can set an award aside is fixed by the legal seat alone, which the parties choose expressly or through institutional rules that designate a default seat; the institution that ran the case and the place where hearings are held do not decide it. An award made under DIFC-LCIA rules, with Dubai as the seat and the Federal Arbitration Law as the procedural law, belonged to the Dubai Court of Appeal, not to the DIFC Courts.

An annulment action must be filed within 30 days of notification of the award to the party seeking annulment (Article 54(2)). In May 2025 the same court held that the period starts only when the tribunal itself delivers a signed copy of the award, as Article 44 requires it to do within 15 days. Learning of the award in some other way, or being served with it in enforcement proceedings, does not start the clock.

Missing that deadline is not the end. In March 2025 the Court held that a party which never sued for annulment may still resist the order enforcing the award, by a grievance to the Court of Appeal within 30 days of notice of that order (Article 57), on any annulment ground in Article 53(1). A successful grievance refuses enforcement but leaves the award, and its res judicata effect, standing. Filing for annulment does not suspend enforcement unless the court orders a stay on serious grounds (Article 56(1)).

Foreign and sports awards follow their own routes

Under Article 2 of the Federal Arbitration Law, an international commercial arbitration seated abroad is outside the Law unless the parties chose to apply it, although Article 2(3) also extends the Law to arbitrations over relationships governed by UAE law. In December 2021 the Ras Al Khaimah Court of Cassation held, of its own motion, that a RAKEZ company that lost an arbitration seated in China, under contracts governed by Chinese law, could not ask the Ras Al Khaimah courts to annul the award. Annulment, the Court said, belongs to the courts of the seat; UAE courts may only recognise and enforce a foreign award, or refuse it on the New York Convention's limited grounds.

The Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation in June 2022 upheld enforcement of a New York ICC award against a guarantor. The enforcing court does not review the merits, public order means the State's fundamental interests rather than rules protecting private rights, and the US courts' refusal to vacate the award showed that it was final where it was made. That ruling, like a Federal Supreme Court decision of March 2020 on a London maritime award, applied the procedural regulation then in force. The route is now set by Articles 222 and 223 of the 2022 Civil Procedure Code: a petition to the execution judge, who decides within five working days, and a direct appeal against the order. The award must concern a matter that can be arbitrated under UAE law and be enforceable where it was made.

Sports awards sit apart in Dubai. In November 2025 the Dubai Court of Cassation's General Assembly held that the Dubai courts cannot hear a standalone action to annul a UAE Sports Arbitration Centre award, which is final and enforceable under the Centre's law and rules. Review comes when enforcement is sought: at a party's request, the execution judge examines whether the award complies with the general rules of arbitration whose breach would make it void, in a substantive execution dispute that can go up to the Court of Cassation.

What we check in a company's contracts and records

On dispute clauses, we read whether arbitration is the only route; whether a legal seat is named, not just an institution or a set of rules; and whether the companies that will actually be involved, including affiliates whose cheques support the deal, are parties to the clause.

On authority, we check that whoever signs a contract containing an arbitration clause holds a board resolution or power of attorney that expressly covers agreeing to arbitration, kept in the company's records where it can be produced years later. We ask the same of the counterparty's signatory.

When a claim is served, the company's advocates raise the arbitration plea in the first filing, case management included. Before enforcing a cheque or suing on a contract with an arbitration clause, owners weigh whether a court may treat that as giving up the clause for that dispute and possibly later ones on the same contract.

When an award arrives, the date of the tribunal's delivery is recorded and the 30-day annulment period diarised; any enforcement order starts its own 30 days. Registered addresses and contract email addresses are kept current, because each deadline depends on a notice reaching someone who will act on it.

One arbitration law, several top courts

The federal judiciary and the Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah courts each have their own top court. All courts must follow the principles of the Federal and Local Judicial Principles Unification Authority (Federal Law No. 10 of 2019, Article 18); beyond those, there is no general rule of binding precedent. Most rulings here are Dubai's; where other top courts address the same point, they pull the same way, applying the same federal Arbitration Law. A General Assembly ruling settles its court's position: a cassation judgment departing from it without referral can be revoked (Civil Procedure Code, Article 190(1)(c)).

Apart from the public-policy case, and the cheque case's added ground that Dubai courts may not give up jurisdiction they hold under the Civil Procedure Code, clauses were lost or kept through what companies did: the order of their pleadings, the forum they chose to collect money, the words they signed and who signed them.

This article describes UAE court rulings and legislation as of 1 November 2026. It is general information, not legal advice. Polaris is not a law firm; in disputes we work alongside licensed UAE advocates.