A Court of Appeal ruling has drawn a firm line under party autonomy in arbitration. Writing in NLJ this week, Masood Ahmed, associate professor at the University of Leicester, analyses Gluck v Endzweig [2026] EWCA Civ 145, where a clause allowing arbitrators to amend an award ‘at any time’ was held incompatible with the Arbitration Act 1996
While arbitration rests on party freedom, s 58 of the Act provides that awards are ‘final and binding’. Lord Justice Dingemans concluded that an open-ended power of amendment was ‘fundamentally inconsistent’ with that principle: if an award can be altered indefinitely, it may never crystallise into something enforceable.
The decision underscores that autonomy ‘is not absolute’. Drafting must avoid language conferring ‘indeterminate jurisdiction’ on tribunals. Limited extensions are permissible, but finality remains paramount. Arbitration’s appeal—certainty, efficiency and enforceability—depends on it.
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