Enforcing a UAE arbitral award in the United States

The three-year clock, and what it does not measure

9 U.S.C. § 207 reads: “Within three years after an arbitral award falling under the Convention is made, any party to the arbitration may apply to any court having jurisdiction under this chapter for an order confirming the award as against any other party to the arbitration.” The second sentence then directs that the court “shall confirm the award unless it finds one of the grounds for refusal or deferral of recognition or enforcement of the award specified in the said Convention”.

Three features of that deadline matter for a UAE award, and each cuts against a common instinct.

It runs from when the award “is made”. Not from service on the debtor. Not from the debtor's default in payment. And not from any UAE court step — not ratification under Article 55 of the Federal Arbitration Law, not the expiry of the 30-day annulment bar in Article 54(2), and not the conclusion of an annulment action. A creditor who treats UAE ratification as a precondition to going to the United States is consuming a federal limitation period in order to obtain a document that Article IV of the Convention does not ask for.

It is markedly shorter than the periods elsewhere in this series. England works on six years under section 7 of the Limitation Act 1980, Switzerland on a ten-year prescription. Three years is the outlier, and it is the reason the United States should be identified as a target destination early rather than after the Gulf has been exhausted.

And it is a limitation on the application to confirm, which is a separate question from how long the resulting judgment remains enforceable. We say nothing here about the latter.

Whether the award falls under the Convention

§ 202 brings in an award arising out of a legal relationship, whether contractual or not, “which is considered as commercial”. It then carves out an award “entirely between citizens of the United States” unless the relationship involves property abroad, envisages performance or enforcement abroad, or has some other reasonable relation with one or more foreign states.

Note how § 202 defines citizenship, because it catches people out: a corporation is a US citizen “if it is incorporated or has its principal place of business in the United States”. The test is disjunctive. Where a UAE award debtor is a US-incorporated subsidiary of a Gulf group, that subsidiary is a US citizen for § 202 purposes — though an award involving a UAE claimant is in any event not “entirely between” US citizens, and a UAE-seated arbitration will satisfy the foreign-relation limbs comfortably.

§ 203 then provides that an action falling under the Convention “shall be deemed to arise under the laws and treaties of the United States”, with original jurisdiction in the district courts “regardless of the amount in controversy”. There is no diversity or threshold problem to solve.

§ 204 governs venue: the district where an action on the controversy could have been brought absent the arbitration agreement, or the district embracing the designated place of arbitration “if such place is within the United States”. For a UAE-seated award the second limb is unavailable, so venue has to be built on the first.

The United States acceded to the Convention on 30 September 1970, in force for it from 29 December 1970, and made two Article I(3) declarations — one applying the Convention on a reciprocity basis to awards made in the territory of another Contracting State, and one limiting it to differences arising out of relationships considered commercial under US national law. The UAE acceded on 21 August 2006, so a UAE-seated award is made in the territory of another Contracting State and the reciprocity declaration is satisfied.

Primary and secondary jurisdiction: why no US court can annul

This is the structural point a UAE client should understand before instructing US counsel, and it is favourable.

The grounds on which a US court may refuse enforcement come from Article V of the Convention, not from § 10 of the FAA. That follows from § 207 itself, which speaks of grounds “specified in the said Convention”, and from § 10(a), which on its face empowers only “the United States court in and for the district wherein the award was made” to vacate. For a UAE-seated award, no US court is a § 10 court.

The doctrinal framing comes from Karaha Bodas Co LLC v Perusahaan Pertambangan Minyak Dan Gas Bumi Negara, 364 F.3d 274 (5th Cir 2004). Only a court in a country with primary jurisdiction over an award may annul it; primary jurisdiction belongs to the country in which, or under the law of which, the award was made, and all other Convention states are secondary jurisdictions whose courts are limited to deciding whether the award may be enforced there. A secondary-jurisdiction court may refuse enforcement only on Article V grounds, may not apply its own domestic law to evaluate a request to annul, and may not refuse enforcement merely because the arbitrator may have erred in law or fact.

Applied here: for a UAE-seated award the UAE is the primary jurisdiction. Annulment belongs to the UAE courts — onshore under Articles 53 and 54 of the Federal Arbitration Law, or to the DIFC or ADGM courts according to the seat. A US district court cannot set the award aside and cannot review the merits. What it can do is refuse enforcement on an Article V ground, and the ground most often reached for is Article V(1)(e), the status of the award at the seat. That is a UAE-law question answered by evidence, which is the part of the file we own.

Jurisdiction over the debtor, and the 2025 change

Personal jurisdiction is the real battleground, and it is not where most published summaries put it.

For a private debtor, personal jurisdiction is required. In First Investment Corp of the Marshall Islands v Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding Ltd, 703 F.3d 742 (5th Cir 2012), the court accepted that personal jurisdiction is not among the Article V grounds but held that is not dispositive: the Convention and its implementing legislation are an exercise of treaty and legislative power, while personal jurisdiction rests on constitutional due process, and the Constitution takes precedence. The Fifth Circuit recorded that “[t]hose circuits that have considered this issue agree”, citing decisions of the Second, Third, Fourth, Seventh, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits. So this is not a circuit split on whether personal jurisdiction is needed.

Where the debtor is a foreign state or state-owned entity, the Supreme Court changed the test. In CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd v Antrix Corp Ltd, decided 5 June 2025, a unanimous Court held that personal jurisdiction exists under the FSIA when an immunity exception applies and service is proper, and that the Act does not require proof of “minimum contacts” over and above the contacts already required by its enumerated exceptions. The case arose from exactly this posture: a petition to confirm a foreign arbitral award against a company wholly owned by India, where the Ninth Circuit had reversed a confirmed judgment for want of personal jurisdiction.

Two cautions, because the Court was careful. It expressly left open whether the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause itself requires minimum contacts before a federal court may exercise jurisdiction over a company owned by a foreign sovereign. And its companion decision in Fuld v Palestine Liberation Organization declined to import the Fourteenth Amendment minimum-contacts standard into the Fifth Amendment, which unsettles the content of the due-process test that the older circuit cases applied. The direction of travel favours award creditors; the destination is not fixed.

One further point worth knowing, because debtors argue the opposite: the presence of assets in the United States is not a precondition to confirmation. In TMR Energy Ltd v State Property Fund of Ukraine, 411 F.3d 296 (DC Cir 2005), the debtor sought dismissal on the basis that it had no US assets to execute against. The court rejected it — the debtor may own property there in the future, and a judgment in hand will expedite attachment when it does. Confirming early and executing later is a legitimate strategy, and with a three-year clock it is often the right one.

Serving a UAE debtor — and a second treaty the UAE has not joined

The UAE is not a party to the Hague Service Convention of 1965. We checked the HCCH status table for that Convention directly: the United Arab Emirates does not appear on it. (It is likewise absent from the Apostille Convention table, which is why every document in this series travels by consular legalisation.)

That closes the first and easiest route under the Federal Rules. FRCP 4(f)(1) permits service by an internationally agreed means such as those authorised by the Hague Service Convention — unavailable where no such agreed means exists. What remains is 4(f)(2): service as prescribed by the foreign country's own law for service in its courts of general jurisdiction; as a foreign authority directs in response to a letter rogatory or letter of request; or, unless prohibited by that country's law, by clerk-addressed mail requiring a signed receipt. 4(f)(3) permits other means not prohibited by international agreement, as the court orders.

For a corporate debtor there is a trap in FRCP 4(h)(2): service abroad may be made in any manner prescribed by Rule 4(f) for an individual, except personal delivery under 4(f)(2)(C)(i). Personal delivery to the entity abroad is not available. The realistic routes against a UAE company are therefore 4(f)(2)(A), a letter rogatory under 4(f)(2)(B), clerk-addressed mail under 4(f)(2)(C)(ii), or court-ordered alternative service under 4(f)(3).

If the debtor is a state or an instrumentality, FRCP 4(j)(1) sends service to 28 U.S.C. § 1608 instead — and after Devas, compliance with § 1608 is one of the two conditions on which personal jurisdiction “shall exist”. It is jurisdictionally load-bearing, not a formality.

If the debtor is a state or state-owned

Immunity from suit is dealt with by 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(6), which removes immunity where the action is brought to enforce an agreement to arbitrate or “to confirm an award made pursuant to such an agreement to arbitrate”, provided one of four conditions is met. For a UAE-seated award the operative limb is (B): the agreement or award “is or may be governed by a treaty or other international agreement in force for the United States calling for the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards”. The New York Convention is such a treaty.

Immunity from execution is a different and much harder question, and two structural features are routinely misstated.

First, § 1610(a)(6) does not stand alone. The opening words of § 1610(a) confine the whole subsection to “[t]he property in the United States of a foreign state … used for a commercial activity in the United States”. So three conditions operate cumulatively: the property must be US property used for commercial activity in the US; the judgment must be based on an order confirming an arbitral award; and attachment must not be inconsistent with any provision in the arbitral agreement. A summary that quotes paragraph (6) alone overstates the creditor's position.

Second, and this is a genuine trap: § 1610(b), which governs the property of an agency or instrumentality engaged in commercial activity in the United States, is a separate regime, and its paragraph (2) keys off § 1605(a)(2), (3), (5) and 1605(b) — it does not list the arbitration exception in § 1605(a)(6). For instrumentality property the cleaner route is § 1610(b)(1) waiver. The asymmetry between § 1610(a)(6) and § 1610(b) is easy to miss and expensive to discover late.

Finally, § 1610(c) imposes a mandatory gate: no attachment or execution is permitted until the court has ordered it, having determined that a reasonable period has elapsed following entry of judgment and any notice required by § 1608(e).

From confirmation to money

Confirmation produces an ordinary federal judgment. 9 U.S.C. § 13, which applies to Chapter 2 proceedings through § 208, provides that the judgment “shall be docketed as if it was rendered in an action” and shall have “the same force and effect, in all respects, as, and be subject to all the provisions of law relating to, a judgment in an action”.

Execution then runs through FRCP 69(a)(1): a money judgment is enforced by writ of execution, and the procedure on execution “must accord with the procedure of the state where the court is located, but a federal statute governs to the extent it applies”. Both halves matter — state law supplies the mechanics, and the FSIA displaces it against a state debtor. FRCP 69(a)(2) is the asset-discovery tool: the judgment creditor may obtain discovery from any person, including the debtor.

Where the assets sit in another district, 28 U.S.C. § 1963 permits registration of the judgment by filing a certified copy there — but only once the judgment has become final by appeal or by expiry of the appeal time, or on a good-cause order of the court that entered it. Once registered it has the same effect as a judgment of that district.

So the sequence is: a § 207 application within three years, a confirmation order, a judgment docketed under § 13, execution under FRCP 69(a) following forum-state procedure, and registration under § 1963 wherever else the debtor's assets are found.

What we produce in the UAE

The Article IV documents — the duly authenticated award or a certified copy, and the arbitration agreement or a certified copy, with a certified translation where needed; the consular legalisation chain through MOFAIC and the United States mission in the UAE, there being no apostille route; and the UAE-law certificate aimed at Article V(1)(e).

Because a US court sits in secondary jurisdiction, that certificate is doing almost all of the UAE-law work in the case. It should establish the date the award was made, which is what starts the § 207 clock; the date of notification to the parties; whether an annulment action has been brought under Article 53; whether one remains admissible under the 30-day bar in Article 54(2); whether enforcement has been stayed under Article 56; and whether the award has in fact been set aside. The full pack is on the UAE-side pack.

What this page does not state, and why

• The legal character of the § 207 three-year period. We have confirmed the text and that it is three years. We have not established whether it is a jurisdictional bar or an ordinary statute of limitations, whether it is subject to equitable tolling, waiver or estoppel, when an award is “made” for these purposes — signature, or notification and dispatch to the parties — or how it interacts with a pending annulment at the UAE seat. These are the questions a client actually asks, and each needs its own answer from US counsel.
• Whether a DIFC-seated or ADGM-seated award engages the US reciprocity declaration differently from an onshore UAE award. We have not researched it and we do not assume the answer.
• Whether forum non conveniens is available against a Convention enforcement action. The Ninth Circuit held in 2026 that it is not, as a question of first impression in that circuit, and the DC Circuit has reasoned similarly on the assets logic. A Second Circuit decision is sometimes cited as contrary, but the Ninth Circuit distinguishes it as decided under the Panama Convention rather than the New York Convention. We have not read it, and we will not present a New York Convention split that we cannot verify. We also have not checked whether the 2026 Ninth Circuit decision is final.
• Prejudgment attachment, post-judgment interest, and the effect in the United States of a UAE ratification or annulment judgment as a matter of res judicata or issue estoppel.
• Which district to file in for a given debtor. That is a venue and asset-tracing question, answered on the facts with US counsel.

Sources

• Federal Arbitration Act, Chapter 2 — 9 U.S.C. §§ 201, 202, 203, 204, 207 and 208, and § 13 of Chapter 1, read in the United States Code, 2024 Edition, on govinfo.gov. Note that § 208 was amended by Pub. L. 117–90 on 3 March 2022; its catchline is now simply “Application”, not the older “Chapter 1; residual application”.
• Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, New York, 1958 — Articles III to VII. US accession 30 September 1970, in force 29 December 1970, with two Article I(3) declarations; UAE accession 21 August 2006.
• Karaha Bodas Co LLC v Perusahaan Pertambangan Minyak Dan Gas Bumi Negara, 364 F.3d 274 (5th Cir 2004) — primary and secondary jurisdiction.
• CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd v Antrix Corp Ltd, No. 23–1201 (US, 5 June 2025), 605 U.S. 223 — personal jurisdiction under the FSIA requires no minimum contacts beyond the statutory exceptions; the Fifth Amendment question expressly left open.
• First Investment Corp of the Marshall Islands v Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding Ltd, 703 F.3d 742 (5th Cir 2012) — personal jurisdiction required for a private debtor; the circuits that had considered it agreed.
• TMR Energy Ltd v State Property Fund of Ukraine, 411 F.3d 296 (DC Cir 2005) — US assets are not a precondition to confirmation.
• Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act — 28 U.S.C. §§ 1605(a)(6), 1608, 1610(a) and (a)(6), 1610(b), 1610(c); 28 U.S.C. § 1963; FRCP 4(f), 4(h)(2), 4(j)(1) and 69(a), in the Rules as at 1 December 2025.
• HCCH status tables — the UAE is absent from both the Service Convention of 1965 and the Apostille Convention of 1961.
• Federal Law 6 of 2018 on Arbitration, as amended by Federal Decree-Law 15 of 2023 — Articles 53, 54(2), 55 and 56, which govern what the UAE-law certificate can say.

Statutes, rules and opinions checked 4 November 2026 against govinfo.gov, uscourts.gov, supremecourt.gov, treaties.un.org and hcch.net. US procedure, venue and the current standing of the authorities are confirmed with US counsel before filing; we act on the UAE side.

UAE award, US assets?

The three-year clock in section 207 runs from the award, not from anything a UAE court does. If the United States is a plausible destination, the time to establish that is now rather than after the Gulf has been exhausted. Send us the award and we will date the clock and prepare the UAE side.

Instruct us   Back to the series