The Enforcement Readiness Review:
Why No Other Institution Has Solved the Enforcement Gap
An award that cannot be enforced is not a resolution. It is a document. UNIONE™ was built on the conviction that the enforcement gap is the most important unsolved problem in international arbitration - and the ERR is its answer.
The international arbitration community has spent decades refining the process of producing awards. Institutions have competed on speed, cost, arbitrator quality, and procedural sophistication. The 2021 ICC Rules, the 2025 SIAC Rules, the 2020 LCIA Rules - each represents genuine procedural progress.
What they have not solved is what happens after the award is made.
This is the enforcement gap - and it is, arguably, the most consequential unresolved problem in international commercial dispute resolution.
The Enforcement Gap: What It Is and Why It Persists
When an arbitral tribunal renders an award, its work is done. The institution closes the file. The parties receive the award document. And then - in a significant proportion of cases - the real difficulty begins.
The award-debtor challenges the award in the courts of the seat. Or in the courts of the enforcement jurisdiction. Or both. The grounds vary: due process concerns, public policy objections, procedural irregularity. In some jurisdictions, courts interpret these grounds broadly. In others, the process of obtaining recognition and enforcement of a foreign award takes years and carries significant uncertainty.
The institution that issued the award plays no role in this process. Having issued the award, its involvement ends. The winning party is left to navigate enforcement alone, with local counsel in jurisdictions they may not know, presenting an award whose enforceability profile they do not fully understand.
"The question is not whether to arbitrate. It is whether, having won, you will ever see the money. That question should have been answered before the arbitration began."
Why No Other Institution Has Solved It
The enforcement gap is not new. Practitioners have been aware of it for decades. So why has no institution addressed it systematically?
The answer lies in institutional incentives. Arbitration institutions are measured - and compete - on the quality of their proceedings. Caseload volume. Award delivery time. Arbitrator calibre. These are the metrics that drive institutional reputation. Enforcement outcomes are, quite literally, outside the institution's remit once the award is issued.
There is also a structural reason. Designing an award-review process that does not compromise tribunal independence is genuinely difficult. Any institutional scrutiny of an award before it is issued risks being characterised as interference with the tribunal's decision-making authority. ICC's Terms of Reference process - one of the institution's most distinctive features - has been criticised precisely because it creates an institutional layer that some argue limits tribunal flexibility.
UNIONE™ took a different approach. Instead of reviewing the merits, the Enforcement Readiness Review examines the procedure.
How the ERR Works
The Enforcement Readiness Review is conducted by UNIONE™'s Award Review Committee - a body of qualified legal professionals appointed by UNIONE™ - before any award is finalised and communicated to the parties.
The review does not examine the merits of the tribunal's decision. It examines four things:
- Legal robustness: Is the award internally consistent? Is the reasoning clear and logical? Are the operative provisions precise enough to be enforced?
- Procedural integrity: Was the procedure fair? Were the parties given equal opportunity to present their case? Is there any due process concern that could provide grounds for challenge?
- Enforcement risk profile: How does this award look in the identified enforcement jurisdictions? What challenges is it likely to face? What documentation will the enforcing party need?
- Rules compliance: Does the award comply with the UNIONE™ Rules and with applicable law at the seat?
The Award Review Committee can draw the tribunal's attention to matters of form, procedure, or apparent error. The tribunal retains sole authority over the content, reasoning, and outcome of the award - and is not required to act on the Committee's observations. But in practice, the vast majority of observations relate to clarity of expression and procedural documentation - issues that the tribunal is invariably willing to address.
The Enforceability Certificate
Following the ERR, UNIONE™ issues an Enforceability Certificate for every award. This certificate provides something that no other institution currently offers: a formal institutional assessment of the award's enforceability profile.
The Certificate assigns one of three ratings:
A High Enforceability rating means the award presents no material procedural or due process concerns, and the risk of challenge on non-merits grounds is assessed as low. A Standard rating means the award meets all institutional standards, but one or more jurisdiction-specific considerations may benefit from attention in enforcement proceedings. A Jurisdiction-Specific Considerations rating identifies specific enforcement challenges and recommends local counsel engagement.
The Certificate is not legal advice. It does not guarantee enforcement. But it provides the winning party with something of genuine evidentiary value: documented institutional confirmation of the award's procedural integrity, issued by the institution that administered the proceedings. In enforcement proceedings in national courts, where the challenge is to the procedure rather than the merits, this is a significant practical advantage.
Post-Award Compliance Monitoring
The ERR and Enforceability Certificate are not the end of UNIONE™'s institutional involvement. The Post-Award Compliance Monitoring service allows the winning party to engage UNIONE™ for the 90 days following the award - creating a formal institutional record of whether the award has been satisfied.
A Compliance Certificate confirms full satisfaction. A Non-Compliance Record documents non-compliance - and constitutes institutional evidence of that non-compliance for use in enforcement proceedings in national courts. In jurisdictions where the evidentiary bar for enforcement is high, this record can materially assist the enforcing party.
The Broader Point
The enforcement gap is not, at its core, a legal problem. The New York Convention provides a framework that works. The problem is informational and structural: parties and counsel do not have a reliable way to assess, before an award is issued, how that award will perform in enforcement proceedings - and the institution that issued the award provides no support in finding out.
UNIONE™'s position is that this is a solvable problem. The ERR, the Enforceability Certificate, and the Post-Award Compliance Monitoring system together represent the first institutional attempt to solve it systematically - not as an advisory service offered separately, but as a structural feature built into every proceeding.
The question, ultimately, is simple: should an arbitration institution consider its job done when the award is issued? Or when the winning party has actually received what the award says they should receive?
UNIONE™'s answer is the second.
