## Facts

- R. SA (the debtor in enforcement proceedings and appellant) and A. Ltd. (the award creditor and appellee) had a contract containing an arbitration clause referring disputes to arbitration before CIETAC in China.
- A contractual dispute arose and was submitted to CIETAC pursuant to that clause.
- CIETAC issued an arbitral award in favor of A. Ltd.; the award was written in Chinese and stated it was final.
- A. Ltd. applied to a Swiss lower court in Geneva to recognize and enforce the CIETAC award under the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.
- In support, A. Ltd. filed: (i) a non-authenticated English version of the contract, (ii) a non-authenticated copy of the Chinese-language award, and (iii) a full French translation of the award.
- An employee of the Swiss Embassy in Beijing certified only the first and last pages of the French translation. Those pages identified the arbitral institution, the parties and arbitrators, the dispositive outcome, and that the award was final.
- The Swiss lower court granted recognition and enforcement even while noting that A. Ltd. had not submitted the exact documentation described in Article IV of the New York Convention.
- R. SA appealed to the Geneva Court of Justice, arguing that enforcement should have been refused because the authentication/certification requirements of Article IV were not met.
- R. SA did not dispute that the award copy accurately matched the original or that the French translation was correct; its challenge was based on formal defects in the Article IV package.

## Issues

1. Whether a Swiss court may recognize and enforce a foreign arbitral award under the New York Convention when the applicant’s documentation does not strictly match the authentication and translation certification requirements of Article IV.
2. Whether partial certification of a translation (e.g., certification of only the first and last pages by an embassy employee) can be sufficient when it establishes the award’s identity, finality, and dispositive content.
3. Whether a party resisting enforcement may prevail on an Article IV formal objection after conceding the authenticity of the award copy and the accuracy of the translation.

## Decision

- The Geneva Court of Justice rejected R. SA’s appeal and upheld recognition and enforcement of the CIETAC award.
- The court treated Article IV’s documentation requirements as serving a practical verification function, not as rigid technical barriers that automatically defeat enforcement.
- Given that the essential elements of the award could be verified from the materials submitted (including the certified first/last pages) and given R. SA’s concessions, the court found no basis to refuse enforcement on documentation grounds.
- The court accepted that the submitted materials were sufficient to allow the enforcing court to identify the award, understand its dispositive terms, and be satisfied as to authenticity.
- As a result, the foreign award remained enforceable in Switzerland notwithstanding imperfections in how the award copy and translations were authenticated/certified.

## Legal Principles

- Article IV of the New York Convention requires the enforcing party to supply the award and the arbitration agreement (or certified copies), and certified translations when needed, but these requirements are applied with attention to their purpose.
- Where the resisting party does not contest the authenticity of the award copy or the accuracy of the translation, a court may find the Article IV function satisfied even if the formalities are incomplete.
- Documentation defects under Article IV do not necessarily bar enforcement if the court can reliably verify the award and understand its operative content.
- Partial official certification of a translation may be accepted where it credibly confirms key identifying and dispositive parts of the award and there is no concrete claim of alteration or mistranslation.
- The New York Convention is applied in an enforcement-friendly manner; purely formal objections should not defeat enforcement absent a real doubt about authenticity, content, or finality.
- A party resisting enforcement bears the practical risk of failure when it raises only technical objections while conceding the material accuracy of the documents presented.

## Conclusion

The Geneva Court of Justice upheld enforcement of a CIETAC award, ruling that imperfections in Article IV authentication and translation certification did not require refusal where the submitted documents, combined with the debtor’s admissions, were enough to verify the award’s authenticity, finality, and operative terms.


Appellant R. SA v. Appellee A. Ltd., ASA Bull. No. 4/2000, pp. 786-792; La Semaine judiciaire, 2000/I, p. 310 (1999)