You hold a foreign arbitral award and the Spanish company will not pay

The case, in five lines

What is brought

A claim for exequatur (recognition) of the foreign award, governed by the 1958 New York Convention to which article 46 of Arbitration Act 60/2003 refers, followed by an enforcement claim. These are two separate filings before two different courts, not one.

Before which court

Recognition is granted by the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the autonomous community where the debtor company is domiciled or resident, and failing that by the one of the place of enforcement or where the award is to take effect (article 8.6 of Act 60/2003). Subsequent enforcement falls to the civil section of the Court of Instance (Tribunal de Instancia), under the same territorial criteria.

Deadline

Five years. Article 518 of the Civil Procedure Act sets the lapse period for the enforcement action based on an arbitral decision, and it starts on the day the award ceased to be open to challenge at the seat of the arbitration and became binding on the parties, not on the day you received it. In practice the period is already required when applying for exequatur, and a fresh five year period opens from the order granting it for filing the enforcement claim. It is a lapse period, not a limitation period: recorded demand letters and promises to pay do not interrupt it, and the court applies it of its own motion.

Who can bring it

Anyone who can show a legitimate interest, under article 54.1 of Act 29/2015: the creditor named in the award or whoever has acquired that claim. The application is brought against the party against whom the award is to be relied on, and requires a court representative (procurador) and a lawyer.

Financial risk

If the Chamber refuses recognition, the award becomes unenforceable in Spain and there is no second round before another court. Costs are added on top if the company's opposition succeeds. And obtaining exequatur is not the same as getting paid: if by then the company has emptied its accounts, you will hold a final order and have nothing to attach, which is precisely what interim measures applied for at the outset prevent.

Your award does not yet open any safe in Spain

Article 46 of Arbitration Act 60/2003 defines a foreign award as one issued outside Spanish territory and subjects its exequatur to the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, done in New York on 10 June 1958. Until that prior recognition exists, no Spanish court will order enforcement against the company, however clear the order to pay contained in the award may be.

Two shortcuts that look obvious should be ruled out from the start, because they do not exist. The Brussels I bis Regulation leaves arbitration outside its scope in article 1(2)(d), so the award does not travel through the European route of recognition without exequatur. And Regulation 655/2014, the one on the European Account Preservation Order, likewise excludes arbitration in article 2(2)(e): that bank account freezing tool is not available for an award.

The trade off is favourable. Spain acceded to the New York Convention without making any reservation and it has been in force here since 10 August 1977, so it applies regardless of whether the State where the award was issued is a party to the Convention and regardless of whether the matter is commercial or civil. There is no need to look for a bilateral treaty, although if a more favourable one exists the Convention itself allows you to rely on it.

The five years that decide whether you still have a case

Article 518 of the Civil Procedure Act is blunt: the enforcement action based on an arbitral decision lapses if the enforcement claim is not filed within the five years following the date it became final. For a foreign award that day is not the date of its service on you or of its filing with the arbitral institution, but the day on which the award ceased to be open to challenge at the seat of the arbitration and became binding on the parties.

The reading that prevails in practice counts that period twice. First when applying for exequatur, because there is little point in recognising an award whose enforcement could no longer be sought. And again afterwards, with a fresh five year period running from the order granting recognition for filing the enforcement claim before the Court of Instance.

What buries most cases is confusing a lapse period with a limitation period. A lapse period is not interrupted: neither the recorded demand letter, nor the meeting where the director acknowledged the debt, nor the payment plan they later breached gives you back a single day. And you should not wait for the company to raise it, because the court checks it of its own motion. If your award is in its fourth year, that fact outranks everything else and the whole timetable is built around it.

Two different courts, and they cannot be combined in one filing

Article 8.6 of Act 60/2003 divides the work. Recognition of the foreign award is decided by the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the autonomous community where the company against which it is sought is domiciled, and failing that by the one of the place of enforcement or where the award is to take effect. Enforcement, once recognition is granted, falls to the Court of Instance under those same criteria.

Since Organic Act 1/2025 the former single judge courts have been absorbed into the Courts of Instance (Tribunales de Instancia), operating across the whole territory since 31 December 2025. Many legal texts still carry the old name, but the filing goes to the civil section of the Court of Instance. The Civil and Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice keeps the name it always had.

Article 54.1 of Act 29/2015 allows the exequatur claim and the enforcement application to be joined in a single filing. With a foreign award that joinder is of no use to you, because the court that recognises and the court that enforces are different: two filings, two moments and two deadlines. It is worth having the second one drafted before the order on the first arrives.

The proceedings require a court representative and a lawyer, are brought against the party against whom the award is to be relied on, open a thirty day window for opposition and are decided by order with the participation of the public prosecutor. Do not count on a second instance: the appeal scheme in article 55 of Act 29/2015 is designed for what a Court of Instance decides and does not fit where the decision is already taken by a Chamber of the High Court of Justice. The claim has to be right first time.

The grounds for saying no are a closed list, and the company has to prove them

Article V of the New York Convention closes the list. Recognition may be refused if the parties were under some incapacity or the arbitration agreement was not valid, if the company was not given proper notice of the appointment of the arbitrator or of the arbitral proceedings or was otherwise unable to present its case, if the award deals with matters not submitted to arbitration, if the composition of the arbitral tribunal or the procedure did not match what was agreed or the law of the seat, and if the award is not yet binding or has been set aside or suspended in the country where it was made.

Those five grounds must be raised and proved by the debtor company, not by you. Only two remain in the court's hands: that the subject matter is not capable of settlement by arbitration and that recognition would be contrary to Spanish public policy. That allocation of the burden of proof is the biggest advantage you bring into these proceedings, and it is worth stating expressly in the claim.

What cannot be done is to try the case again. The Chamber does not review whether the goods were actually defective, whether the agreed price was another one, or whether the arbitrator misread an expert report. Public policy is not a back door for reopening the merits, and a claim that tries it spends on that the space it needed for what matters.

Two further rules that are rarely invoked and do work. If the company has applied to set aside or suspend the award in the country of the seat, article VI of the Convention allows the Chamber to adjourn its decision and, on your application, to order the company to give suitable security: ask for it expressly, because it is not granted of the court's own motion. And if the award contains several rulings and only one is problematic, article 49 of Act 29/2015 allows the rest to be recognised.

The evidence that wins the case: the arbitration agreement and the proofs of service

Article IV of the Convention asks for little: the duly authenticated original of the award or a copy meeting the conditions for authenticity, the original or a certified copy of the arbitration agreement, and a translation by a sworn translator or by a diplomatic or consular agent where they are not in Spanish. The shortness of the list is deceptive, because that is exactly where cases are lost.

The first front is the arbitration agreement. You have to establish that this company was bound: the clause inside the signed contract, who signed it and with what authority, or the exchange of purchase orders and confirmations that incorporated it. If the contract was extended orally, if the signatory was a sales representative without authority, or if the clause travelled in general terms that were never actually sent, that is where the opposition will come in.

The second front is service in the arbitral proceedings, and it produces more refusals than anything else when the company did not appear. You need the full trail: to what address the request for arbitration was sent, how the appointment of the arbitrator was communicated, the institution's acknowledgements, the emails and the courier delivery records. If the arbitration file arrives without those proofs of service, the plea of denial of defence succeeds even if the company knew perfectly well what was going on.

The third is purely formal and is solved with time: legalisation or apostille depending on the country of origin, a full sworn translation and not only of the operative part, and a certificate from the arbitral institution stating that the award is binding and has not been set aside or suspended. A defect here opens a five day window to cure it, and once those five days are gone the case is dismissed at the admission stage.

Attach first, announce afterwards

Article 722 of the Civil Procedure Act allows interim measures to be sought from a Spanish court by anyone who can show they are a party to arbitral proceedings conducted abroad, without waiting for exequatur. Article 8.3 of Act 60/2003 places jurisdiction with the court of the place where the award is to be enforced and, failing that, where the measures are to take effect. And article 54.2 of Act 29/2015 allows them to be sought together with the recognition claim itself.

Timing matters. If you apply for them before filing the claim, article 730 of the Civil Procedure Act voids them unless that claim is filed before the same court within twenty days of their adoption. In other words: you do not apply for interim measures until the article IV document file is closed and the exequatur claim is drafted.

The operational rule is uncomfortable but it decides who gets paid: do not announce the claim. A demand letter on headed paper before the attachment is in place gives the company exactly the weeks it needs to empty the account, move its invoicing to another company or pledge the warehouse. If it later suits you to leave a documented attempt at settlement on file, do it once the attachment is already in place and not before.

How we run the case, step by step

1. 1

   Pin down the day the award became binding

   Before drafting anything, ask the arbitral institution or the arbitral tribunal for a certificate of the date on which the award ceased to be open to challenge at the seat and became binding, and check what challenges were available there and whether they expired. The five years under article 518 of the Civil Procedure Act hang on that date, and with them the answer to whether there is a case at all.

2. 2

   Locate the assets before moving a single piece of paper

   Bank accounts, real estate, vehicles, shareholdings in other companies, pending tax refunds and receivables from its own customers. You cross check the annual accounts filed at the Commercial Registry, land registry extracts and what you already hold from the contract, such as the account numbers used for earlier payments or the delivery addresses. This picture decides whether interim measures are worth it and what they should target.

3. 3

   Apply for interim measures with the claim already drafted

   They are sought under article 722 of the Civil Procedure Act before the court of the place where the award is to be enforced, without prior hearing of the company and offering security. Since article 730 of the same Act causes the measures to fall away unless the claim is filed before that court within the following twenty days, the correct order is to close the document file first and have the exequatur claim already drafted.

4. 4

   Build the article IV file and the denial of defence file as well

   Authenticated original of the award and of the arbitration agreement, apostille or legalisation depending on the country, full sworn translation and a certificate that the award has not been set aside or suspended. To that minimum you add what the Convention does not require but the opposition will certainly dispute: the complete chain of service in the arbitration and proof that whoever signed the contract could bind the company.

5. 5

   File the exequatur claim before the Chamber of the High Court of Justice

   With a court representative and a lawyer, brought against the company, before the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of its domicile. The company has thirty days to oppose, the file is passed to the public prosecutor and the Chamber decides by order. Since there is no second instance, the claim anticipates and neutralises the article V grounds of the Convention instead of waiting to read them in the opposition.

6. 6

   Turn the order into payment before the Court of Instance

   Once recognition is obtained, the enforcement claim goes to the civil section of the Court of Instance under the territorial criteria of article 8.6 of Act 60/2003. The interim measures turn into enforcement attachments, asset investigation orders are requested and balances, receivables and assets are attached. If enforcement comes back empty, the liability of the directors and the challenge of transfers made after the award are examined.

The law that applies

• Art. 46 Ley 60/2003 de Arbitraje. Defines a foreign award as one issued outside Spanish territory and subjects its exequatur to the 1958 New York Convention, using the civil procedure laid down for foreign judgments. BOE-A-2003-23646
• Art. 8.6 Ley 60/2003 de Arbitraje. Gives recognition of foreign awards to the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the domicile of the party against whom it is sought, and subsequent enforcement to the Court of Instance under the same territorial criteria. BOE-A-2003-23646
• Art. 8.3 Ley 60/2003 de Arbitraje. Places jurisdiction over interim measures with the court of the place where the award is to be enforced and, failing that, where the measures are to take effect. BOE-A-2003-23646
• Art. 518 LEC. Sets a five year lapse period, running from the date the decision became final, for the enforcement action based on an arbitral decision. BOE-A-2000-323
• Art. 722 LEC. Allows interim measures to be sought from a Spanish court by anyone who shows they are a party to arbitral proceedings conducted in a foreign country, unless the Spanish courts have exclusive jurisdiction over the main claim. BOE-A-2000-323
• Art. 730 LEC. Voids interim measures granted before the claim is filed if that claim is not lodged before the same court within twenty days of their adoption. BOE-A-2000-323
• Art. 54 Ley 29/2015 de cooperación jurídica internacional. Governs the exequatur proceedings: mandatory court representative and lawyer, claim by anyone showing a legitimate interest, the option of seeking interim measures, thirty days to oppose, documents legalised or apostilled and translated, and participation of the public prosecutor. BOE-A-2015-8564
• Art. 49 Ley 29/2015 de cooperación jurídica internacional. Allows partial recognition where the foreign decision contains several rulings and the whole of the operative part cannot be recognised. BOE-A-2015-8564
• Art. 42 Ley 29/2015 de cooperación jurídica internacional. Names as exequatur the procedure for declaring, as a principal claim, the recognition of a foreign decision and, where appropriate, authorising its enforcement. BOE-A-2015-8564
• Art. 1.2 d) Reglamento Bruselas I bis. Excludes arbitration from the scope of the Regulation, so an award does not travel through the European route of recognition and enforcement without exequatur. 32012R1215
• Art. 2.2 e) Reglamento 655/2014 de la orden europea de retención de cuentas. Excludes arbitration from the scope of the European Account Preservation Order, which is therefore not available to freeze the accounts of a debtor under an award. 32014R0655
• LO 1/2025 de eficiencia del Servicio Público de Justicia. Replaces the former single judge courts with the Courts of Instance, operating across the whole territory since 31 December 2025, and regulates in article 5 the requirement to first attempt an appropriate means of dispute resolution, from which it exempts enforcement claims and interim measures. BOE-A-2025-76

Each article checked against the consolidated text published in the BOE (the Spanish official gazette).

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