Supreme Court of Justice
Date: 27-09-2018
Case Nr. 776/17.6YRLSB.S1
LINK DGSI
Headline:
In a lawsuit for the annulment of an arbitral award, the appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeals is admissible before the Supreme Court, provided that the appeal deals only with the issue of whether the requisites for that annulment are met.
The arbitral award contains sufficient motivation if it addresses the issue of the operation of a liquidated damages clause in a logical, clear and consistent manner, and if it decides as irrelevant the issue of the nullity of such clause in the same fashion.
Summary:
- According to the Portuguese Code of Civil Procedure, there are no doubts that an appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeals in an annulment lawsuit is admissible. It is a standing jurisprudence of the Supreme Court that the appeal “aims exclusively to ascertain if the grounds to set aside an award are met or not.”
- The arbitral award is not in want of motivation if the arbitrators have analysed in a logical, clear and consistent fashion one of the issues at stake (the operation of a liquidated damages clause). The arbitral award does not even lack a proper reasoning if the arbitrators concluded in a logical, clear and consistent fashion as irrelevant the question of whether a liquidated damages clause is invalid if this question becomes prejudiced because of the decision on the first question.