Arbitration is often preferred because its award is final and binding. Nonetheless, this premise is not absolute. There are situations where the arbitral award can be set aside. In Indonesia, this procedure is locally known as annulment and requested to the District Court (or Pengadilan Negeri 'PN'). Article 70 of Law No. 30 of 1999 on Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution ('AADR Law') sets out three main grounds to request an annulment, i.e., forgery, concealment, and deception. However, the General Elucidation of the AADR Law suggests a non-exhaustive list of grounds by using the term 'amongst others'. This vague phrase opens the grounds for interpretation by the Court, and parties seeking annulment can request grounds outside those expressly listed in the AADR Law.
The most common examples include ultra petita, unfairness, and even Article 643 of the Reglement op de Rechtsvordering (RV), which have been previously invoked in annulment cases. The writers aim to scrutinize the prevailing laws and decisions regarding the annulment of the arbitral award and delve deeper into the grounds for arbitral award annulment requests in Indonesia from 2019-2022. Seventy cases were examined during this period. Out of seventy cases, twenty-nine cases were filed for an appeal to the Supreme Court, and two cases out of the twenty-nine cases sent for civil review. In total, fourteen cases were granted annulment, whereas twenty-two requests were held inadmissible (niet onvankelijke verklaard), and thirty-four requests were rejected.
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