The Review of the Question of Fact on Arbitral Awards (Comparative Study: Arbitration in England v. Domestic Arbitration in Iran)

In England arbitration and Iranian domestic arbitration, substantive review (not procedural) is limited mainly to questions of law and finality of arbitrators’ findings of facts is accepted as a principle. However, the absence of explicit legal prohibition on the possibility of review of facts has caused ambiguities in this regard; In the UK, some believe "the Lack of evidential basis for finding of fact" as an exceptional test, especially in domestic arbitrations, may lead to  the review of the arbitrators’ findings of facts, although the appearance of statute law, particularly in granting absolute discretion to arbitrators on the matters of evidence, opposes this view; on the other hand, in Iran's rules of arbitration, the possibility of reviewing “substantive law”  and the suspense  of arbitrators’ power towards the matters of evidence, may cause all questions of fact to be reviewed, even on the evidence matters and the general process of fact finding; this study briefly describes the facts and law and analyzes relevant approaches to the review of  the question of fact. Finally, despite the fact that this research finds such a review for the court possible due to the extension of the scope of question of law review, from the perspective of the current rules of domestic arbitration of Iran while considering the finality principle of the arbitral decisions and the nature of the rules particularly the analysis of Article 374 of Civil Procedural Act, it emphasizes on the court limited intervention to the arbitrators’ gross mistakes.