Arbitration Awards

General

An arbitration award can be registered in the Register of Deeds and Probative Writs in the Books of Council and Session in limited circumstances, as governed by section 12(5) of the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010 ("the 2010 Act"), as follows:

"Unless the parties otherwise agree, a tribunal's award may be registered for execution in the Books of Council and Session or in the sheriff court books (provided that the arbitration agreement is itself so registered)."

This means that a tribunal award can be registered for execution only where the arbitration agreement was itself registered for execution. It is not sufficient that the agreement was registered for preservation only: registration for execution is necessary.

The terms of section 12(5) of the 2010 Act also mean that the Keeper can accept an arbitration award that is not in self-proving form. Usually these awards will only be signed by the arbitrator and not witnessed. There is no prescribed form for these awards.

Arbitration Agreement

Useful links

Register of Deeds and Probative Writs in the Books of Council and Session

General Requirements for Deeds Being Registered in the Register of Deeds and Probative Writs in the Books of Council and Session

Documents being Registered which do not Require to be Self-proving

Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010 (external link)

Requirements of Writing (Scotland) Act 1995 (external link)

There is no prescribed form for arbitration agreements, but they must conform to the requirements of the Requirements of Writing (Scotland) Act 1995 in order to be accepted for preservation, or preservation and execution in the Register of Deeds and Probative Writs in the Books of Council and Session. In the case of execution, a clause of consent to registration for that purpose would be required within the deed as usual.

An agreement to refer to arbitration normally comes from one of two main categories:

a submission, which is a contract entered into specially for the purpose of the arbitration.
an agreement to submit to arbitration, of which the most common example is an arbitration clause included as an ancillary term in another contract such as a minute of agreement.

Where there is any doubt about the registrability of an arbitration award it should be referred to the Registration Practice Team.