This article has been authored by Mr. Abdul Haseeb, a 4th-year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow.

Singapore International Arbitration Centre (“SIAC”) was the first major Asian arbitral institution to include an emergency-arbitration (“EA”) mechanism, as it was adopted in 2010. Under the Paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the SIAC Rules (current 6th Edition, 2016), a party may apply to the SIAC Court for the appointment of an EA as soon as arbitration has commenced (by notice of arbitration). If the SIAC President accepts the application, an EA is appointed within one business day. The EA must set an expedited timetable (typically deciding the application within two days of appointment) and is empowered “to make orders in respect of any interim relief that an arbitrator would ordinarily be capable of granting”. In practice the EA can grant freezing orders, injunctions or other urgent measures on essentially the same substantive basis as a full tribunal. Unless the parties agree otherwise, the EA cannot later sit on the final tribunal, and its powers lapse when that tribunal is constituted. Thereafter the constitutionally-appointed tribunal may confirm, modify or vacate the EA’s order in the final award.

SIAC’s 2025 Rules via Paragraph 25 of Schedule 1 (effective Jan. 2025) introduced a novel Protective Preliminary Order (“PPO”) procedure. A claimant may request an EA and an ex parte PPO simultaneously, without notifying the respondent. If the SIAC Court so orders, the EA must rule on the PPO within 24 hours. The order is then transmitted to the respondent and the claimant must provide the case papers within 12 hours of transmission or the PPO automatically expires three days later. Afterwards the EA proceeds on notice, but the limited PPO (valid for 14 days) safeguards the claimant’s interests until all parties are heard. This ex parte preliminary stage – contemplated by UNCITRAL Model Law Arts. 17B–17D and adopted in jurisdictions like Hong Kong – is intended to prevent frustration of urgent relief. In sum, SIAC’s EA mechanism affords parties a rapid, arbitration-governed route to interim relief, including new ex parte orders under the PPO regime.

Emergency Arbitrator Awards Under Current Indian Law

Under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, Indian courts have always had the power to grant interim relief under Section 9, subject to safeguards (e.g. if ordered pre-tribunal, proceedings must commence within 90 days, and once a tribunal is in place courts defer to Section 17(1) orders). The Act itself made no express reference to emergency-arbitration awards, however. A landmark Supreme Court ruling in Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC v. Future Retail Ltd. (2021) (hereinafter “Amazon”) finally clarified that, in an India-seated arbitration under institutional rules, an EA’s interim order is to be treated as an interim order of “the arbitral tribunal” and is enforceable under Section 17. The Court held that Section 17(1) – which empowers a tribunal to grant interim measures – must be read contextually to include EA awards when parties have contractually consented to such an institution-based procedure. Accordingly, an emergency arbitrator’s award (technically an “interim order”) was deemed binding and enforceable by an Indian court under Section 17(2), just like any tribunal-issued interim order.

This pronouncement resolved prior uncertainty: neither Section 9 nor Section 17 expressly mentioned EAs, and Indian law had not previously recognised EA decisions by statute. In effect, the Court read an EA into the definition of ‘arbitral tribunal’ by party autonomy – echoing prior Law Commission recommendations – and held that parties cannot ignore an EA award that they agreed to be binding. The ruling also made clear that, under the unamended Act, a court order enforcing an EA award is not separately appealable (since Section 37 only contemplates appeals from the grant or refusal of interim relief). In practice, a party seeking to enforce an EA order post-Amazon would petition the appropriate court (typically the High Court at the arbitral seat) under Section 17(2) of the Act. Prior to Amazon, Indian courts (e.g. in HSBC PI Holdings v. Avitel) had occasionally factored in existing EA orders when granting analogous relief, but without clear statutory basis. The Amazon decision now provides a concrete basis: so long as the arbitral seat is in India, SIAC EA awards (including PPO orders) can be enforced by recourse to Section 17 of the Act as interim measures of the (actual or deemed) tribunal.

Section 9A of the Draft Arbitration Amendment, 2024

The proposed Arbitration & Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2024 formally codifies emergency arbitrators into the Act via a new Section 9A. As drafted, Section 9A(1) authorises ‘arbitral institutions’ (i.e. institutional rules like SIAC’s) to provide for the appointment of an emergency arbitrator for interim measures under Section 9, prior to the constitution of the tribunal. The EA’s proceedings shall be conducted in the manner specified by the Council (the Arbitration Council of India), and Section 9A(3) stipulates that any order passed by the EA shall be enforced in the same manner as if it is an order of an arbitral tribunal under Section 17(2). In addition, Section 9A(4) provides that the final tribunal may confirm, modify or vacate the EA’s order (in whole or part) when it issues its award.

Key elements of Section 9A include:

• Institutional only: Only an arbitral institution can appoint an EA for interim relief under Section 9A(1), meaning EA procedures will not automatically apply in purely ad hoc arbitrations. Parties must have opted into an institutional regime (like SIAC) to invoke an EA.
• Enforcement via Section 17(2): By design, EA orders will be treated as tribunal orders for enforcement (mirroring the Supreme Court’s approach).
• Tribunal review: The final tribunal retains the power to reconsider any EA order under Section 9A(4) once constituted.
• Procedure deferred: The Act gives no detailed procedure; instead the Indian Council of Arbitration (“ICA”) must prescribe the EA rules. Critics note this leaves the regime incomplete until model regulations are adopted.

The Draft Bill thus aims to ‘bridge’ the gap recognized in Amazon, but it raises several concerns. Notably, the Section 2(2) proviso (which identifies which Part I provisions apply to foreign-seated arbitrations) includes only Section 9A(2) (the Council-procedure clause) but not Section 9A(3) (enforcement). This suggests that EA appointments may be governed by the ACI rules even for foreign seat arbitrations, but enforcement of such EAs may not be covered by Section 9A (and Section 17) when the seat is outside India. In other words, the Bill as drafted seems to provide for EAs in foreign arbitrations but does not expressly extend enforcement rights to India when the seat is abroad. Other issues include the absence of a default EA procedure (since the Council must still frame rules), and the limitation to institutional cases (contrasting with Section 9’s court remedy, which any party may seek). In sum, Section 9A would formally recognise EA orders and enforcement in India-seated arbitrations, but leaves open whether and how EAs in non-India seats can be enforced domestically.

Implications for Enforcing SIAC EA Orders in India

Once Section 9A is enacted, the legal pathway for enforcing SIAC EA orders in India becomes clearer. For India-seated SIAC arbitrations, EA orders will be treated exactly like tribunal-issued interim orders under Section 17. Practically, a party would apply to the designated Court (e.g. the High Court at the seat) under Section 17(2) to make the EA order a court order. As the Supreme Court indicated in Amazon, the Act deems arbitration to have commenced on service of the notice, so Section 17 is available immediately. Thus, enforcement of a SIAC EA’s freezing or injunctive order can proceed in the usual manner: the court will enforce it as if the (future) tribunal had issued it. Section 9A(3) would make this explicit.

Procedurally, enforcement remains in India’s courts even though the EA is part of an arbitration under foreign institutional rules. The seat being in India (e.g. parties may expressly choose New Delhi) ensures that Part I fully applies. By contrast, if a SIAC arbitration were seated outside India, Section 2 of the Act would generally exclude Part I, and the Draft Bill’s 9A appears not to change that except for internal EA procedures. In practice, this means an EA order from a Singapore or a London-seated SIAC case could not, at least directly, be enforced as an Indian court order under the Act. Indian courts might still recognize such foreign EA orders as persuasive evidence of need for relief, but formal enforcement would require seat-appropriate mechanisms, e.g. enforcement of the eventual final award under Part II.

Section 9A also interacts with Section 9 (court relief). The introduction of EA enforcement does not repeal or limit Section 9; parties can still seek interim measures from Indian courts before or during arbitration. In some cases, a claimant might use both: for example, an EA order could be sought ex parte (under SIAC PPO) to block urgent action, while a Section 9 application could run in parallel. Once the tribunal is in place, Section 9(3) bars further court applications unless tribunal relief is ineffective. The EA mechanism, supported by Section 9A, reinforces the tribunal’s primacy: it encourages parties to resolve interim disputes through the agreed institutional framework rather than burden courts. Finally, under Section 9A the EA’s order remains ‘provisional’ and may be overturned by the tribunal later, so parties enforcing it must still proceed to arbitration (the EA’s role is to fill the interim gap).

Comparative Perspectives

Several jurisdictions have anticipated or enacted rules similar to India’s proposed regime. Singapore, for example, amended its Arbitration Act in 2012 by expanding the definition of ‘arbitral tribunal’ to include an emergency arbitrator. This means EA orders, under SIAC or other Singaporean institutional rules, are expressly binding and enforceable as if made by a tribunal. Hong Kong took a parallel step by adding a new Part 3A to its Ordinance, allowing recognition and enforcement of ‘any emergency relief’ granted under relevant rules. In the UK, the Arbitration Act 2025 similarly introduces a standalone regime: Sections 41A–42 explicitly support the enforcement of EA orders in arbitrations (when parties have agreed to EA procedures). These reforms align with UNCITRAL’s Model Law innovations and the view that party autonomy should encompass emergency relief. In contrast, under current Indian law (pre-9A) EA enforcement was addressed only by judicial interpretation (“Amazon”), whereas under Section 9A it would be statutorily endorsed (at least for India-seated cases).

Therefore, the Draft Bill’s Section 9A brings India into line with a global trend: institutional EA decisions, including SIAC PPOs, will have statutory force in India. If enacted carefully, Section 9A would give Indian parties the confidence that a SIAC EA order can be enforced in the same way as an interim order by any Indian tribunal. Concerns remain about the scope (especially for foreign seats) and procedural details. Nonetheless, by codifying Amazon v Future and introducing no-appeal EA orders, the Bill aims to make India’s arbitration regime more responsive to urgent interim needs, while echoing reforms in Singapore and the UK.