Route 66: enforcing arbitral awards

Section 66 of the Arbitration Act 1996 (the 1996 Act) provides that an arbitral award may, with the permission of the court, be enforced in the same manner as a judgment or order of the court. However, for the award to be validly enforced, it must, as confirmed in West Tankers Inc v Allianz SpA (The Front Comor) [2012] EWCA Civ 27, [2012] All ER (D) 127 (Jan), seek to enforce rights which the award has established (ie, be a declaratory award). Recently, the High Court in A v B [2020] EWHC 952 (Comm) set aside an earlier order enforcing an arbitral award on the grounds that the full award debt was not outstanding and therefore it did not constitute a declaratory award for the purposes of s 66 of the 1996 Act.