From the seat written into a contract to the day a foreign award is enforced against assets in India, the same discipline holds the file. Every position taken at the drafting table has to survive the tribunal, the supervisory court and the enforcing court. We build it to.
Each stage of an arbitration constrains the next. The seat fixes the supervisory court; the clause fixes the institution; the interim order shapes the leverage; the award fixes the challenge; the challenge fixes enforcement. We hold every link in that chain so none of them breaks.
Cross-border arbitration under the Section 2(1)(f) definition: seat selection, governing law, institutional rules and enforceability for Indian and foreign parties.
Open the pageEnforcement of New York and Geneva Convention awards under Part II, the Section 48 refusal grounds, and the narrow public policy test.
Open the pageChallenging or defending a domestic award under Section 34: grounds, patent illegality, public policy, the strict limitation and Section 36 enforcement.
Open the pageDrafting and reviewing enforceable arbitration agreements: Section 7 essentials, seat, institution, number of arbitrators and the pitfalls that void clauses.
Open the pageUrgent interim relief from an emergency arbitrator before the tribunal is formed, and the enforceability of that relief in India after Amazon v Future Retail.
Open the pageChoosing between administered institutional arbitration and party-run ad hoc arbitration, weighing cost, speed, administration and certainty.
Open the pageInternational contracts rarely choose Indian courts. They choose an institution and a seat - SIAC in Singapore, the ICC in Paris, the LCIA in London, the DIFC in Dubai, or a specialist trade body like GAFTA. Each carries its own rules, its own supervisory court and its own path to enforcement in India. We draft for the forum you choose and conduct the reference inside it.
Singapore-seated arbitration administered by SIAC under the 2025 Rules: clause design, emergency and expedited procedure, the conduct of the reference and enforcement of the Singapore award in India.
Open the pageArbitration administered by the ICC International Court of Arbitration under the 2021 Rules: clause design, Terms of Reference, scrutiny of the award, emergency and expedited procedure, and enforcement in India.
Open the pageLondon-seated arbitration administered by the LCIA under the 2020 Rules and supervised under the English Arbitration Act: clause design, conduct of the reference and enforcement of the London award in India.
Open the pageArbitration seated in the DIFC and administered by DIAC under the 2022 Rules, supervised by the DIFC Courts: clause design, the post-Decree 34 framework, conduct of the reference and enforcement in India.
Open the pageSpecialist commodity-trade arbitration under the GAFTA Rules for grain, feed, pulses and oilseed contracts: time-bar protection, the first-tier tribunal, the Board of Appeal and enforcement of the GAFTA award in India.
Open the pageEach stage hands a clean record to the next. The clause anchors the jurisdiction. The pleadings frame the issues. The interim relief preserves the asset. The award closes the merits. The enforcement converts paper into recovery.
Seat, venue, governing law, institution, arbitrators and language fixed before any dispute is conceivable.
Notice of arbitration, Section 9 and Section 17 applications, and emergency arbitrator relief to hold the position.
Constitution under Section 11, pleadings, evidence, expert and witness strategy, and the merits hearing.
Securing or resisting the award, and prosecuting or defending a Section 34 setting-aside application.
Execution of domestic awards under Section 36 and foreign awards under Part II against assets in India.
A legal argument that misreads the technology collapses under cross-examination. A commercial claim that cannot be evidenced is noise. Our framework reads the dispute under all three lenses at once — so the pleadings, the experts and the award sit on one coherent record.
Short, direct, on the record.
AMLEGALS advises and represents parties across the full arbitration lifecycle under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996: drafting and pressure-testing arbitration agreements, commencing and defending domestic and international commercial arbitrations, emergency and interim relief under Sections 9 and 17, setting-aside challenges under Section 34, and enforcement of both domestic awards under Section 36 and foreign awards under Part II (New York Convention). Every mandate runs under the firm’s TCL Framework™.
Yes. The firm acts in ad hoc arbitrations and in institution-administered references before SIAC, ICC, LCIA, the MCIA and the Delhi and Mumbai centres, and advises at the drafting stage on which route fits the contract, the counterparty and the likely dispute.
Yes. A foreign award from a New York Convention country notified by India is enforceable under Part II (Sections 44–52) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. Since the 2015 amendment and decisions such as Vijay Karia v Prysmian and Government of India v Vedanta, the public policy ground for refusing enforcement is construed narrowly, and the enforcing court does not re-open the merits.
A domestic award can be challenged under Section 34 only on the limited grounds in that section — incapacity, an invalid arbitration agreement, lack of notice or inability to present a case, the award exceeding the scope of reference, improper tribunal composition, non-arbitrability, conflict with the public policy of India, or, for purely domestic awards, patent illegality on the face of the award. The court does not sit in appeal on the merits.
The cheapest dispute to win is the one engineered at the drafting table. Engaging counsel when the arbitration clause is written — seat, venue, governing law, institution, number of arbitrators and language — prevents the jurisdictional fights that otherwise consume the first year of a reference. Where a dispute is already live, early counsel secures interim relief and preserves the record.
The earliest mandate is the most valuable. Seat, institution and governing law are decided long before a notice of arbitration is ever served.