The Ontario Court of Appeal recently released its endorsement in Alfred Wegener Institute v. ALCI Aviation Ltd., 2014 ONCA 398, upholding an order from the application judge that a German arbitral award be recognized and enforced in Ontario as if it were a judgment or order of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
After the appellants failed to appear at the German arbitration and the Ontario application to enforce the German arbitral award, the appellants finally responded by bringing this appeal based on a technical argument under Article 35(2) of the International Commercial Arbitration Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. I.9, which required the party relying on the foreign arbitral award to supply a certified copy of the original award to the application judge. The appellants argued that the translation of the arbitral award before the application judge was not a duly certified copy.
The Court of Appeal rejected the appellant’s argument and held that the application judge could properly find that the arbitral award met the requirements under Act where the issue was not raised at the application.
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