Procedures to enforce arbitral award in Tanzania. By Johnson Yesaya

 PRELIMINARY

Tanzania is a country which allows its citizens to seek justice through domestic and international courts or tribunals. All foreign arbitral awards are subject to registration before High Court of Tanzania so as they can be enforced domestically, having an arbitral award is one thing and the registration is another important thing for the award to take effect. Enforcement and execution of arbitral awards are governed both by the Arbitration Act  of the laws of Tanzania and the Civil Procedure Code . 

Section 68(1) of The Arbitration Act  authorize enforcement of domestic and foreign arbitral award through court of law, in enforcing arbitral award, court will make the same order or judgment with the same effects to a given arbitral award. 

Enforcement of foreign awards is subject to several requirements as provide under section 78(2) and (4) of The Arbitration Act . The domestic arbitral award and foreign arbitral award may be refused by High Court if; parties entered into arbitration agreement without capacity or they were not well represented, or if the arbitration agreement was invalid basing on the laws governing that agreement, the party against whom the arbitral award is invoked was not given proper notice of the appointment of an arbitrator or of the arbitral proceedings or was otherwise unable to present his case, and if the arbitral award made in excess of jurisdiction and powers given to that particular tribunal.

To enforce foreign award through High Court, foreign award must have  been  made  in  pursuance  of  an  agreement  for  arbitration which  was  valid  under  the  law  by  which  it  was  governed, must have  been  made  by  the  tribunal  provided  for  in  the  agreement or  constituted  in  manner  agreed  upon  by  the  parties, must have been made in conformity with the law governing the arbitration  procedure, must have  become  final  in  the  country  in  which  it  was  made;  and it must have  been  in  respect  of  a  matter  which  may  lawfully  be  referred to  arbitration  under  the  law  of  Tanzania and its enforcement must not be in contrary to the public policy or laws of Tanzania.  

PROCEDURES TO ENFORCE ARBITRAL AWARD IN TANZANIA

Both domestic and foreign arbitral award can be enforced in Tanzania by filing before High Court, original award, or a certified copy of the award by an arbitrator (s) or the person appointed by the arbitrator to perform that duty. This position was applied until 1997 when the court of appeal came with an addition to that position.

In Tanzania Cotton Marketing Board Versus Cogcot Cotton Company SA , the court of appeal stated that, receipt of arbitral award by registrar of High Court constitutes filing of an arbitral award, in addition, a court of law must notify the parties who may wish to challenge or to enforce the award in terms of the law. This is the position of the law to date. The parties may challenge enforcement of arbitral award by an application on the grounds stated by section 30(1) and (2) of the Arbitration Act.

Registration of foreign arbitral award in Tanzania is mandatory and no one can enforce such award prior registration. A registered award is good as court order and an award holder may enforce it in the same manner as enforcing court orders.

REFERENCE

BOOKS

Renate Dendorfer†  and Jeremy Lack, The Interaction Between Arbitration and Mediation: Vision v Reality, vol no 1 2004

Mark Batson Baril and Donald Dickey, MED-ARB: The Best of  Both Worlds   or Just A Limited ADR Option, 2010

IFC, Alternative Dispute Resolution Manual : Implementing Commercial Mediation, Small and Medium Enterprise Department, The World Bank Group, November 2006

CASE LAWS

Aums Tanzania Limited v. Peter Ambrose Kayombo (Labour Revision No 79 of 2018)[2020] TZHC 1696 (06 July 2020)

Geita Gold Mine v. William swai (Labour Revision Case No.80 of 2018) [2019] TZHC 2072; (31 January 2019)

Katavi And Kapufi Limited & Another Vs Emmanuel Dotto Ibrahim And 8 others (Labour Revision No. 4 of 2020) [2020] TZHCLD 3; (24 August 2020)

OTHER SOURCES

https://www.stewartslaw.com/expertise/international-arbitration/arbitration-process/(Accessed June 22 2021)

https://www.swissarbitration.org/centre/arbitration/arbitration-clauses/ (Accessed June 22 2021)

https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/what-is-an-arbitration-clause.html(Accessed June 22 2021)

https://iccwbo.org/dispute-resolution-services/arbitration/arbitration-clause/ (Accessed June 22 2021)

https://uncitral.un.org/en/texts/arbitration/contractual (Accessed June 22 2021)