Facts

The Tainan city municipal government petitioned the courts to vacate an arbitral award against it which ordered it to compensate its contractors for costs and expenses resulting from the extension of the construction period. When filing its petition with the Taipei District Court, the municipal government invoked Article 40(1)(2) of the Arbitration Law, which provides that a party to arbitration proceedings may bring a lawsuit in order to vacate the award if the arbitration agreement is invalid or became invalid during the arbitration proceedings, as its legal grounds for the vacation. Later, in addition to this legal ground, the municipal government invoked Article 40(1)(1) of the Arbitration Law, which provides, among other things, that a party to arbitration proceedings may bring a lawsuit in order to vacate the award if the award is irrelevant to the dispute as set out in the arbitration agreement or is beyond the scope of the arbitration agreement. This addition was procedurally overruled by the Taipei District Court and subsequently by the Taiwan High Court. The municipal government appealed against the Taiwan High Court's ruling to the Supreme Court.

Decision

In its Judgment 92-Tai-Kang-Tzu-406, the Supreme Court held as follows:

• According to Article 41(2) of the Arbitration Law, a lawsuit to vacate an arbitral award must be filed within the non-extendable 30-day period after delivery or service of the written arbitral award.
• A lawsuit to vacate an arbitral award can be based on any one of the nine subparagraphs of Article 40(1) of the Arbitration Law. Each of those nine grounds for vacation grants the parties an independent right to file a lawsuit to have the award at issue vacated by the courts.
• When a party to arbitration proceedings invokes more than one subparagraph of Article 40(1) in its petition for the vacation of the award, the petitioner is alleging a concurrence of multiple rights to file suit to vacate the award and files a combined proceeding consisting of multiple lawsuits. In other words, the petitioner is adding a new lawsuit to the existing proceedings, rather than merely an additional reason to support its claim, if the petitioner invokes another subparagraph of Article 40(1) during the ongoing proceedings.
• Therefore, invoking another subparagraph of Article 40(1) during the ongoing proceedings is governed by Article 41(2) of the Arbitration Law - that is, it must be made within the non-extendable 30-day period after delivery or service of the award.

Comment

Since the 30-day statutory period for actions to vacate an arbitral award is brief and non-extendable, a losing party who wishes to have the arbitral award vacated and its attorney must consider all possible grounds for vacation and clearly spell them out in the petition from the outset. Any missed grounds cannot be invoked once the 30-day statutory period has elapsed.