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Enforcing Foreign Arbitral Awards in Bangladesh: A Practical Guide for Award Holders

Winning an arbitration is only half the battle. An award from the ICC in Paris, SIAC in Singapore, the LCIA or a trade body in Liverpool is worth exactly what you can recover with it. When the losing party, its bank accounts, its factory or its receivables are in Bangladesh, the award has to be brought home through the Bangladeshi courts.

Nowhere is this more pressing than in the commodity trades. Bangladesh is one of the world's largest importers of raw cotton for its spinning and garment industry, and it relies heavily on imported wheat and other grains. Those contracts are almost always written on standard trade-association terms. Disputes therefore go to the International Cotton Association (ICA) in Liverpool, the Grain and Feed Trade Association (GAFTA) in London, or similar bodies such as FOSFA for oils and fats.

The disputes follow a familiar pattern. The world price falls after the contract is signed, and the Bangladeshi buyer fails to open the letter of credit, sometimes because its bank will not open one above the current market rate. The foreign seller closes out the contract, goes to arbitration, and often wins an award with no defence filed. Then the real worry begins:

Will a Bangladeshi court enforce an award made in Liverpool or London against a local mill or importer?

Can the buyer block or delay it by suing in Dhaka, or by obtaining an injunction against the arbitration?

Will import-policy or foreign-exchange rules be raised as "public policy" to defeat the award?

How long does the seller have to act, and what happens if it spends years trying to settle?

Can the money actually be recovered and sent out of the country?

These are not hypothetical concerns. Two of the most important Bangladeshi decisions on foreign awards, Cottonex Anstalt v Comilla Spinning Mills (2020) and Jess Smith & Sons Cotton LLC v Patriot Spinning Mills (2026), arose from ICA cotton awards, and in both the foreign seller recovered nothing in Bangladesh. Each failure could have been avoided with the right advice at the right time.

The good news is that Bangladesh has a clear, Convention-based route for doing this. The bad news is that the route has traps, and a 2026 decision of the High Court Division has made one of them fatal for award holders who wait too long. This guide explains how enforcement works, what the other side can argue, and what you should do now if you hold an award against a Bangladeshi party.

The legal framework at a glance

Bangladesh acceded to the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards on 6 May 1992. The Convention is given effect through the Arbitration Act, 2001, which replaced the colonial-era Arbitration Act, 1940 and the Arbitration (Protocol and Convention) Act, 1937.

Three features of the Act matter most to a foreign award holder:

Only the enforcement chapter applies to foreign-seated arbitrations. Under section 3, the Act governs arbitrations seated in Bangladesh, but sections 45 to 47 (recognition and enforcement of foreign awards) also apply where the seat is abroad. The High Court Division confirmed this in Accom Travels and Tours Ltd v Oman Air S.A.O.C., 27 BLC (2022) 596.

A "foreign arbitral award" is defined by the seat. Section 2(k) treats any award made in the territory of a state other than Bangladesh as foreign (subject to an exclusion for "Specified States" notified by the government).

No reciprocity barrier in practice. The Act does not distinguish between awards made in New York Convention states and awards made elsewhere, so the same procedure applies.

The effect of section 45(1)(a) is that a foreign award is binding on the parties for all purposes. It can be relied on as a defence or set-off in Bangladeshi proceedings, and, more importantly, it can be enforced as if it were a decree of a Bangladeshi court.

Which court, and what you must file

A foreign award is enforced by execution through the Court of the District Judge, Dhaka, under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, in the same manner as a decree of a Bangladeshi court (section 45(1)(b)). Dhaka has exclusive jurisdiction for this purpose, wherever in the country the debtor or its assets happen to be.

The application must be supported by:

the original award or a duly authenticated copy;

the original arbitration agreement or a duly authenticated copy; and

evidence that the award is a foreign award (typically the seat, the institution and the signed award itself).

If the award or the agreement is in a language other than English or Bangla, a translation into English must be certified by a diplomatic or consular agent of the applicant's country, or certified in another manner acceptable under Bangladeshi law.

These are not formalities to leave until the last minute. Authentication and consular certification can take weeks, especially where the award was issued years ago or the original signatories are hard to reach.

The three-year clock: the most expensive mistake an award holder can make

The Arbitration Act does not itself set a time limit for enforcing a foreign award. For years, some advisers assumed that award holders had up to twelve years, by analogy with the outer limit for executing decrees under section 48 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

That assumption has now been firmly rejected. In Jess Smith & Sons Cotton LLC v Patriot Spinning Mills Ltd (Arbitration Appeal No. 24 of 2024, judgment of 26 February 2026), a US cotton seller held an International Cotton Association award from Liverpool, dated 6 February 2012, for over US$ 511,000 plus interest. It filed for execution in Dhaka in October 2023 and asked the court to excuse the delay, explaining that it had been advised it had twelve years and had spent the intervening period trying to settle.

The High Court Division dismissed the appeal and held that:

The three-year period under Article 182 of the Limitation Act, 1908 applies, running from the date of the award, because section 45 treats the award as a decree for execution purposes.

Section 5 of the Limitation Act (condonation of delay) does not apply to execution of a foreign award. No statute extends it to section 45 applications, so the court has no power to forgive late filing, however good the reason.

Wrong legal advice and settlement talks are not a sufficient excuse in any event.

The practical lesson is stark. If you hold a foreign award against a Bangladeshi party, you should treat three years from the date of the award as a hard deadline. Negotiating a settlement is sensible, but it does not stop the clock. File first and negotiate from a position of strength.

On what grounds can the debtor resist enforcement?

Section 46 sets out the only grounds on which a Bangladeshi court may refuse recognition or enforcement. They track Article V of the New York Convention. The party resisting enforcement must prove that:

a party to the arbitration agreement was under some incapacity;

the arbitration agreement is not valid under the law to which the parties subjected it (the Bangla text, through a translation quirk, speaks of the governing law itself not being a valid law);

it was not given proper notice of the appointment of the arbitrator or the proceedings, or was otherwise unable to present its case;

the award deals with a dispute outside the scope of the submission to arbitration (with severance possible for the parts that are within scope);

the tribunal or procedure did not follow the parties' agreement or the applicable law; or

the award has not yet become binding, or has been set aside or suspended by a court at the seat.

In addition, the court may refuse on its own motion if the subject matter is not arbitrable under Bangladeshi law, or if enforcement would conflict with the public policy of Bangladesh.

Public policy is a narrow gateway, but not a closed one. The Appellate Division, in Saudi Arabian Airlines Corporation v Saudi Bangladesh Services Company Ltd, 73 DLR (AD) (2021) 277, explained, when setting aside a domestic award, that an award offends public policy only where it is patently illegal, with an illegality going to the root of the matter, or is so unfair and unreasonable that it shocks the conscience of the court. Trivial errors, or a simple disagreement with the tribunal's reasoning, do not qualify, and the court does not re-try the merits. For foreign awards, Cottonex Anstalt v Comilla Spinning Mills Ltd, 26 BLC (2021) 276, held that the test is narrower still. Even so, that case refused enforcement on public policy grounds (see Leading judicial decisions below).

If a challenge to the award is pending before the courts at the seat, the Dhaka court may pause enforcement until that challenge is decided. An award that has actually been set aside at the seat will not be enforced.

Award holders dealing with Bangladeshi state-owned entities should also note that the Act contains no provision allowing the state or a state entity to raise sovereign immunity at the enforcement stage.

Protecting assets while enforcement is pending

The greatest practical risk in any enforcement action is that assets disappear before judgment. Bangladeshi law offers real protection here.

Section 7Ka of the Act empowers the court to grant interim measures "until enforcement" of an award, including injunctions against transferring or moving property to frustrate enforcement, the appointment of a receiver, and orders for the custody or preservation of property. In Accom Travels, the High Court Division held that while these powers are not available in support of a foreign arbitration while it is still running, they can be invoked at the stage of enforcing a foreign award.

An application for protective relief should therefore usually be filed alongside, or immediately after, the enforcement application, supported by evidence of the debtor's assets and any risk of dissipation.

From recognition to recovery

Once the court is satisfied that the award is enforceable, it proceeds exactly as it would with a Bangladeshi money decree. The full toolkit of the Code of Civil Procedure becomes available, including attachment of bank accounts, receivables and shares, attachment and sale of moveable and immoveable property, and, in appropriate cases, other coercive measures.

A refusal to recognise or enforce a foreign award can be appealed to the High Court Division under section 48 of the Act. Debtors also have appellate and revisional avenues, and a well-resourced debtor may use them to delay. Careful preparation at the first stage, with a complete documentary record and a clear answer to every foreseeable section 46 objection, is the best defence against a long appellate detour.

Where recovered funds need to leave Bangladesh, foreign exchange regulations and the requirements of the banking system have to be navigated. This should be planned for from the outset rather than treated as an afterthought.

Leading judicial decisions

Bangladeshi case law has moved a long way in 25 years. Before 2001 there was no direct route for enforcing a foreign award. Today the courts apply a settled, Convention-based test, but they have also refused enforcement in real cases. The decisions below set out the rules award holders need to know.

From no remedy to a statutory right

Aminur Rahman Khan was decided on 4 April 2001, six days before the Arbitration Act, 2001 came into force. The English owner of a chartered vessel had a London award and an English High Court judgment, but could not execute either in Dhaka. The court held that Bangladesh's accession to the New York Convention did not change the law on its own. The owner had to bring a fresh money suit on the charterparty.

Section 45 of the 2001 Act was the answer to that problem. A foreign award is now binding in itself and is enforced directly as a decree, with no need to re-argue the dispute.

Cottonex: why public policy objections must be taken seriously

Cottonex is the leading Bangladeshi decision on resisting a foreign award, and it is a warning for award holders. The court adopted the pro-enforcement principles. Enforcement may be refused only if it would offend (i) the fundamental policy of Bangladeshi law, (ii) the interest of Bangladesh, or (iii) justice or morality. The court also held that the merits of the award cannot be reopened.

The award was still refused, for three public policy reasons:

The tribunal defied a Bangladeshi court order. The High Court Division had restrained the arbitration, and the ICA tribunal issued its award while that injunction stood. It made no difference that the injunction was later vacated, or that the seller said the order was beyond jurisdiction and never properly served. The court held that a party must apply to set aside an order it believes is void, not ignore it.

The contract conflicted with import regulation. The buyer's bank had refused to open the letter of credit because the contract price was not the "most competitive rate" required by the Import Policy Order. The court treated rules that protect Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves as part of public policy.

The award holder took inconsistent positions. In separate English proceedings against another Bangladeshi buyer, the same seller had argued that the ICA "invoicing back" rules did not apply. It could not rely on those same rules in Dhaka.

The court also found that part of the award went beyond the submission to arbitration. The contract incorporated the ICA Bylaws but not the ICA Rules, yet the damages were calculated under the Rules.

Accom Travels: the current rule on court support

For many years, single-judge decisions conflicted on whether Bangladeshi courts could support foreign-seated arbitrations. HRC Shipping and Southern Solar said yes, following the since-overruled Indian Bhatia International line. STX Corporation and the earlier Appellate Division authority said no.

Accom Travels resolved the conflict on a reference to a larger bench. The rules now are:

Only sections 45, 46 and 47 of the Act apply where the seat is outside Bangladesh.

Interim measures under section 7A are not available before or during a foreign arbitration. They become available once the award is filed for enforcement before the District Judge, Dhaka.

If the other side sues in Bangladesh despite a foreign arbitration clause, section 10 of the Act does not apply. The court should still stay the suit under its inherent power in section 151 CPC.

Two points from the earlier cases still matter in practice. Interim relief is available only against parties to the arbitration agreement, not against its directors personally (STX Corporation). And Bangladeshi courts will not stop payment under an unconditional, on-demand bank guarantee without a clear case of fraud (Southern Solar).

Lessons for award holders

Never ignore a Bangladeshi court order restraining the arbitration. Apply to have it vacated, and ask the tribunal to wait until that is done.

Check the underlying contract against Bangladeshi regulation, especially import pricing and foreign exchange rules, before the dispute reaches enforcement.

Keep your legal position consistent across every forum and every counterparty.

Make sure the tribunal applies only the rules your contract incorporates.

Before the award, seek interim protection from the tribunal or the courts of the seat. Bangladeshi courts can freeze assets only once enforcement begins.

File within three years of the award (Jess Smith).

A note on the new Commercial Courts

The Commercial Court Ordinance, 2026, published in the gazette on 1 January 2026, creates specialised courts for a wide range of commercial disputes. It does not amend the Arbitration Act, and sections 45 to 47 continue to govern foreign awards. How the new courts will interact with arbitral enforcement in practice is still developing, and award holders should take advice on the current position when they file.

Practical checklist for award holders

Diarise the deadline. Three years from the date of the award, with no extension available.

Gather the originals early. Award, arbitration agreement, and certified English translations where needed.

Trace assets before filing. Bank relationships, property, receivables, shareholdings and trade flows.

Seek protective orders promptly. Use section 7Ka at the enforcement stage to stop assets moving.

Anticipate the section 46 defences. Keep proof of service, notices, tribunal appointments and procedural orders from the arbitration.

Check the position at the seat. Know whether any set-aside proceedings are pending or concluded.

Plan for repatriation. Consider foreign exchange formalities before funds are recovered.

Don't let settlement talks run the clock out. File, then negotiate.

How The Justice Corner can help

The Justice Corner, Dhaka, advises foreign and domestic clients on every stage of bringing an arbitral award to recovery in Bangladesh: reviewing the award and the limitation position, preparing and filing the enforcement application before the District Judge, Dhaka, securing interim protection over the debtor's assets, resisting section 46 objections, and pursuing execution and any appeals through to the Supreme Court.

If you hold an award against a Bangladeshi party, or you are a Bangladeshi business facing enforcement of a foreign award, the time to take advice is now, not when the clock is about to run out. Contact our chamber for an initial assessment of your award.

This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. The law is stated as of 18 October 2026. Specific advice should be obtained on the facts of any particular matter.