The UAE’s arbitration landscape continues to mature, and recent Court of Cassation decisions from 2024 and 2025 show that the onshore courts are actively supporting that trajectory. Three themes stand out. First, the courts are increasingly protecting the arbitral process from judicial interference, most notably by confirming that interim measures issued by tribunals cannot be annulled by the courts. Second, they are moving toward substance over form, including by clarifying that arbitral awards need not be signed on every page to be enforceable. Third, while the overall direction is pro-arbitration, the case law remains formalistic in some areas (especially around authority to sign arbitration agreements and witness oath requirements) where parties and tribunals should continue to exercise caution.
Onshore (Mainland) vs Offshore (Free Zone) Arbitration Jurisdictions in the UAE
Before turning to the judgments, one structural distinction is worth recalling. The UAE has three main arbitration jurisdictions, each governed by different laws:
- First, onshore/mainland Dubai and Abu Dhabi, which are governed by UAE Federal Law No. 6 of 2018 on Arbitration (the “Federal Arbitration Law”), which applies by default to arbitrations seated in the UAE except in the financial free zones (unless the parties agree otherwise) and is a civil law jurisdiction.
- Second, the Dubai International Financial Centre (“DIFC”), a financial free zone, which is governed by the DIFC Arbitration Law No. 1 of 2008, and has a common-law regime.
- Third, the Abu Dhabi Global Market (“ADGM”), another financial free zone, which is governed by the ADGM Arbitration Regulations 2015 (as amended in 2020), and also has a common-law regime.
The Court of Cassation’s decisions discussed below (issued in Arabic, so, for convenience, we provide machine translations into English) concern onshore arbitrations; they do not bind the DIFC or ADGM courts, which operate independently and are not subject to the onshore court hierarchy.
The UAE’s “unique” onshore-offshore structure has been noted in the Delos Guide to Arbitration Places (2nd edn, 2025) (“GAP”) and is mirrored in the region by Qatar’s similarly bifurcated model.
Interim Arbitral Measures Cannot Be Annulled by Courts
In its decision in Case No. 657 of 2025, the Dubai Court of Cassation confirmed an arbitral tribunal’s power to issue provisional/interim measures (in particular, in this case, an anti-suit injunction) in a UAE-seated arbitration. Interim measures are temporary remedies issued by an arbitral tribunal to protect parties’ rights, preserve assets or maintain the status quo until a final award is issued.
The dispute arose from an ICC arbitration under a memorandum of understanding (“MoU”). During the arbitration, the tribunal issued an interim measure barring the respondent from filing any court proceedings concerning matters governed by the MoU until the final award, unless the tribunal granted permission. The respondent challenged that decision before the Dubai Court of Appeal, seeking annulment, arguing it violated public order/constitutional litigation rights and was not among the measures permitted under Article 21 (Interim or Precautionary Measures) of the Federal Arbitration Law. The Court of Appeal annulled the tribunal’s decision.
Then, the Court of Cassation held that Article 21 empowers arbitral tribunals to order provisional/protective measures during the arbitration and reserves to the tribunal alone the power to revoke, suspend or modify such measures. The Federal Arbitration Law does not grant other bodies the power to cancel them. Since the challenged ICC decision was a provisional measure, the Court of Appeal erred in annulling it. The Court of Cassation quashed the appealed judgment and, deciding the merits, ruled the annulment case inadmissible and dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction, ordering costs and attorney’s fees.
The key takeaway from this decision for parties is that during an arbitration only the tribunal may modify or revoke the interim measure; an annulment action before the local courts is inadmissible, thereby reducing the risk of parallel proceedings. Court involvement remains possible at the enforcement stage or where a party seeks court‑ordered interim measures under the Federal Arbitration Law.
Arbitral Awards Need Not Be Signed On Every Page
On 11 September 2025, the Dubai Court of Cassation issued a welcome decision in Case No. 778 of 2025 concerning the enforcement of a foreign award. The court endorsed the approach adopted in Decision No. 1/2025 of the Authority for Unification of Local and Federal Judicial Principles of the UAE, confirming that the Federal Arbitration Law imposes no requirement for an arbitral award to be signed on every page. Rather, an award will be treated as valid where it is signed on the final page by all arbitrators (or, where applicable, by the majority). The court also held that failure to sign each page does not violate public policy (Article 53), confirming that excessive formalism hinders enforcement and raises costs, contrary to pro‑arbitration policy.
This marks a departure from earlier Dubai jurisprudence. For instance, in the Dubai Court of Cassation, Case No. 403 of 2020, enforcement of a China-seated award was refused on the basis that the award was not signed in both its dispositive and reasoning sections. A similar conclusion was reached in the Dubai Court of Cassation, Case No. 109 of 2022, in respect of an award that was signed only on the operative page. By contrast, the Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation in Case No. 411 of 2022 enforced a foreign award notwithstanding the absence of signatures on all pages, holding that no public policy violation arose on that basis.
Recoverability of Legal Costs
While the Federal Arbitration Law expressly allows arbitral tribunals to assess and allocate tribunal’s fees (and tribunal-appointed expert costs) (Article 46), it is silent on the recoverability of the parties’ legal fees.
Adopting a restrictive interpretation of Article 46 as excluding legal fees, in Case No. 821 of 2023, the Dubai Court of Cassation upheld partial annulment of an ICC award, ruling that the ICC tribunal lacked the authority to award legal costs absent express and clear party agreement beyond the institutional rules.
The Dubai Court of Cassation has now reversed course in Case No. 756 of 2024, in which it held that parties are bound by the cost-allocation rules of their chosen arbitral institution, unless those rules conflict with UAE public order. Most major arbitration rules expressly empower tribunals to award the parties’ legal fees (e.g., ICC Article 38, LCIA Article 28; SIAC Rule 37; UNCITRAL Article 40(e), 42). This decision, thus, largely settles prior uncertainty, confirming the tribunals’ power to award reasonable party legal costs where institutional rules explicitly authorise it.
Moreover, under Article 49(4) of Federal Decree Law No. 34 of 2022 on Regulating the Legal Profession and Legal Consultation Profession, contingency fee arrangements are permitted, subject to a 25% cap. To clarify, the 25% ceiling governs fee arrangements between lawyers and their clients; it is not itself a statutory cap on how tribunals may allocate costs between parties.
Areas Where UAE Courts Are Still Formalistic
1. Authority to Sign Arbitration Agreement
Under Article 4(1) of the Federal Arbitration Law, an arbitration agreement must be concluded by a representative of a juristic person authorised to conclude the arbitration agreement; otherwise, the agreement will be null and void.
UAE onshore courts have traditionally taken a highly formalistic approach to this requirement and scrutinised the signatory’s authority closely, sometimes treating defects as a basis to resist arbitration or challenge an award. For instance, in Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation Case No. 902/2024, the court annulled an arbitral award because the company’s CEO signed the arbitration agreement without express delegation from the board chairman (per Articles of Association), rejecting implied authority, subsequent participation or ratification as cures under Federal Arbitration Law Article 4. Also, in Dubai Court of Cassation Case No. 445/2025/24, the court annulled an arbitration clause in unsigned annexes, ruling that stamps and references in signed main contracts were insufficient under Article 4, requiring explicit authorised signatures.
Although more recent Dubai Court of Cassation decisions suggest a somewhat less stringent approach, it remains uncertain whether this reflects a settled shift in jurisprudence (GAP, UAE, pp. 3-4). In practice, parties and tribunals should continue to treat signatory authority as a threshold issue and request proof of authority of the signatory to the arbitration agreement at the outset of proceedings.
2. Oath of Witnesses
UAE courts have annulled arbitral awards where witnesses gave evidence without taking the oath required under UAE law. In the Dubai Court of Cassation, Case No. 96 of 2022, the award was annulled on the basis that Article 29 of the DIAC Arbitration Rules 2007 required an oath be taken, and in this instance, one had not been administered. By contrast, in the Dubai Court of Cassation Case No. 1406 of 2023, the Court held that the absence of an oath did not justify annulment where an expert was appointed under Article 30(1) of the DIAC Arbitration Rules 2007 (which does not impose an oath requirement), particularly as the respondent had not objected at the time. Although Article 33 of the Federal Arbitration Law does not expressly mandate an oath, the safer course (especially in onshore arbitrations) is for tribunals to take witness evidence under oath and for parties to raise any procedural objections promptly.
3. Third-Party Funding Regime
In onshore UAE, there is also no legislation governing third-party funding, even though in practice it has been accepted (GAP, UAE, pp. 2, 25). While funding is increasingly seen in practice, the absence of clear rules leaves open questions on disclosure, conflicts and cost consequences. Greater regulatory guidance would improve transparency and predictability for users. DIFC (Practice Direction No. 2/2017) and ADGM (Litigation Funding Rules 2019 (as amended in 2023)) provide explicit guidance that onshore UAE lacks.
4. Arbitrators’ Immunity
The Federal Arbitration Law contains no express statutory immunity for arbitrators. Although general civil liability principles still provide some protection in practice, the absence of an explicit immunity clause is notable and may influence risk assessments in high-value cases (GAP, UAE, p. 22).
Again, both free zones incorporate English law protections, granting arbitrators immunity from civil suits for good-faith acts/omissions (unless they have caused damage by conscious and deliberate wrongdoing) (Article 22 of DIFC Arbitration Law No. 1 of 2008; Article 24 of ADGM Arbitration Regulations 2015 (as amended in 2020)), a notable advantage over onshore arbitration.
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Taken together, the 2024-2025 decisions overall reinforce a clear direction: UAE onshore courts are increasingly aligning practice with a modern, enforcement-oriented arbitration policy, shielding tribunals’ procedural tools (including interim measures), reducing unnecessary formalism (such as per-page signature demands), and giving meaningful effect to party autonomy when institutional rules are chosen. At the same time, the jurisprudence confirms that outcomes can still turn on “gateway” technicalities, especially signatory authority and oath-taking, so careful drafting, early authority checks, and disciplined procedural management remain essential.
Aceris Law has acted in numerous arbitrations governed by UAE law, both onshore and in the DIFC, under all major institutional rules, and brings extensive experience navigating the evolving jurisprudence of the UAE courts.
