Interim Measures To Ensure The Enforceability Of Foreign Arbitral Awards

Frequently, a claimant may be well advised to ensure the eventual enforceability of an award he hopes will be rendered in his favour already in the course of, or even before, initiating arbitral proceedings.

For this purpose, a claimant will primarily consider obtaining an interim measure freezing the respondent's assets. Especially when raising claims against multinational corporations the claimant will detect such assets in various jurisdictions – some apparently more attractive in this respect than others.

Under Austrian law, a claimant in a pending or upcoming arbitration can request interim measures from state courts or, alternatively, from the arbitral tribunal.¹

Whenever Austrian state courts are called upon to grant interim measures to secure the enforceability of an upcoming arbitral award, their jurisdiction will be based on section 387(2) Austrian Enforcement Act (EA). Accordingly, the court in whose jurisdictions the respondent is domiciled or has its