Porto Court of Appeal
Case No. 327/24.6YRPRT
Date: 16 September 2025
Link to DGSI website HERE
Keywords: Annulment of the Arbitral Award | Time Limits to Issue the Award
Summary:
I – In the special annulment actions provided for in Article 46 of the Voluntary Arbitration Law, the state court only has jurisdiction to annul final decisions of arbitral tribunals if one of the grounds expressly referred to in paragraph 3 of that article is verified.
II – Article 43 of the Voluntary Arbitration Law sets the maximum time limit within which arbitration must be concluded and the respective award notified to the parties. Therefore, it is neither comparable to nor does it produce the same consequences as the provision of the CICAP Rules that sets a deadline within which the arbitrator, after the conclusion of the hearing, must render the award and have it notified to the parties.
III – The Voluntary Arbitration Law only allows the challenge of an arbitral decision through an “Action for Annulment of an Arbitral Award,” brought before the competent state court – in this case, the Court of Appeal.
IV – A request for annulment of an arbitral award presupposes the verification of one of the grounds exhaustively listed in the Voluntary Arbitration Law, which broadly correspond only to formal defects (similar to the nullity of judgements provided for in Article 615 of the Code of Civil Procedure).
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