Enforcing a foreign arbitral award against Swiss assets: what the New York Convention route requires
A creditor with a foreign award needs no exequatur in Switzerland; it needs the right documents and the right timing. A Vaud case from July 2026 shows what both mean.
A US company that sells space flights to private individuals holds an arbitral award. Made in Washington, D.C. under the JAMS rules, it orders a man living in the canton of Vaud, jointly with others, to pay USD 1,879,120.73 in legal fees. His only known Swiss asset is a property near Nyon. Two weeks after the company's lawyers try to serve his counsel with proceedings to confirm the award in Virginia, he gives the property to his wife. What will a Swiss judge want to see, how fast can the property be frozen, and does a gift to a spouse put it out of reach?
The Cour des poursuites et faillites of the Cantonal Court of Vaud answered those questions in KE24.055500 of 29 July 2026. This post uses the decision as a worked example of how to enforce an arbitral award in Switzerland; the rules it applies come from the New York Convention and from Swiss debt enforcement law as read by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.
The Convention inside Swiss debt enforcement
Art. 194 of the Private International Law Act (PILA; IPRG) provides that recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards are governed by the New York Convention. The Convention leaves the procedure to the enforcing state (Art. III NYC; BGE 144 III 411 E. 6.3.4; BGE denotes decisions of the Federal Supreme Court published in its official collection of leading cases). Art. V lists the grounds on which recognition may be refused, and the list is exhaustive (BGE 135 III 136 E. 2.1).
Switzerland has no free-standing exequatur procedure that a creditor must complete before touching assets. A money award is enforced under the Federal Act on Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy (DEBA; SchKG) (Art. 335(2) of the Swiss Code of Civil Procedure, CPC; ZPO). Enforcement begins with a payment order served by the Debt Enforcement Office; the debtor can stop it by filing an objection within ten days, without giving reasons; the creditor then asks a court to dismiss the objection (the mechanics are set out in our short overview of Swiss debt enforcement). It is in that summary procedure that a Swiss court first examines the award, and the debtor may raise the Convention's defences there (Art. 81(3) DEBA). A separate declaration of enforceability under Art. 29 PILA exists, but it is contradictory from the outset and carries no element of surprise, which is the very reason the Federal Supreme Court gives for not requiring it (BGE 139 III 135 E. 4.5.2).
Then there is the attachment. Under Art. 271(1)(6) DEBA, a creditor who holds a "definitive title for dismissal of the objection" can have the debtor's Swiss assets frozen ex parte. A foreign arbitral award is such a title (BGE 139 III 135 E. 4.5.1). The attachment judge decides on the award's enforceability only as a preliminary question, summarily, on facts shown to be probable, and without res judicata effect (BGE 139 III 135 E. 4.5.2). The closer look at the Art. V grounds comes when the debtor objects to the attachment (Art. 278 DEBA). A binding decision on enforceability comes only in the proceedings that prosecute the attachment, usually the application for definitive dismissal of the objection (BGE 149 III 318 E. 3.2.2). The prevailing view accepts this incidental route for all non-Lugano titles, arbitral awards included. (The separate ruling on enforceability that Art. 271(3) DEBA provides for Lugano judgments does not apply; arbitration is outside the Lugano Convention, Art. 1(2)(d) LC.)
Article IV: what the file must contain
Art. IV(1) NYC requires the applicant to produce, with the application, the duly authenticated original award or a duly certified copy (lit. a) and the original arbitration agreement or a duly certified copy (lit. b); Art. IV(2) adds a certified translation where the documents are not in an official language.
The Federal Supreme Court reads all of this leniently. The Convention is to be applied in favour of enforcement, pragmatically and without formalism (BGE 138 III 520 E. 5.4.3 and 5.4.4). "Authentication" means confirmation that the arbitrators' signatures are genuine, and it can be dispensed with when the debtor does not dispute the award's authenticity (BGer 4A_124/2010 of 4 October 2010, E. 4.2). Plain copies do no harm when authenticity is not challenged (BGer 5A_467/2014 of 18 December 2014, E. 2.3). An English award as a rule needs no translation, and a partial translation may suffice (BGE 138 III 520 E. 5.5). A defective file can be cured in the same proceedings, or the application can be refiled (BGer 4A_124/2010, E. 3.1).
The Vaud decision shows where this leniency is tested. The debtor never disputed the authenticity of the award, so lit. a was satisfied with a copy (E. III/e/bb). He did dispute the arbitration agreement. The company had filed a copy of the Stock Purchase Agreement containing the clause, with an affidavit in which one of its officers swore before a Virginia notary that the copy was true, and an apostille on the notary's signature. The debtor replied that no official had certified the contract, that he had never signed it, and that another version of the agreement carried a forum selection clause instead. He demanded the original.
The court held against him in four steps (E. III/e/bb). First, lit. b gives the applicant the choice between original and certified copy; the respondent cannot dictate it. Second, the Convention distinguishes authentication of signatures from certification of a copy: only the award must be authenticated, and only when its authenticity is challenged; for the arbitration agreement a certified copy is enough. Third, since the Convention is silent on which law governs certification, the applicant may comply either with the law of the seat or with Swiss law. Fourth, an affidavit by a party's officer before a notary appeared to conform to Virginia practice, and Art. IV requires no apostille at all. For good measure, the court added that the award reproduces the clause in full and that the Vaud chamber has previously treated this as sufficient under Art. IV even where the agreement was not produced.
Article V: what the debtor must prove
Once Art. IV is satisfied, the burden shifts. The debtor can invoke and prove one of the five grounds of Art. V(1); the two grounds of Art. V(2), non-arbitrability and public policy, the court examines of its own motion (BGer 5A_1046/2019 of 27 May 2020, E. 4.2.2). The five grounds are, in short, an invalid arbitration agreement or an incapable party (a), no proper notice or no opportunity to present one's case (b), an award beyond the scope of the submission (c), an irregular tribunal or procedure (d), and an award that is not yet binding or has been set aside or suspended at the seat (e). The Vaud court spelt out the consequence: the applicant need not show that the arbitration agreement meets the written form of Art. II(2) or is valid under its governing law; the respondent must prove the contrary under Art. V(1)(a) (E. III/d/cc).
Three lines of case law decide most Art. V disputes in practice. First, an award is "binding" under Art. V(1)(e) when no ordinary appeal lies against it; it need not be enforceable at the seat, and a pending set-aside application changes nothing unless a court has suspended the award (BGE 135 III 136 E. 2.2 and 3). The Vaud debtor had appealed against the Virginia confirmation judgment; without a stay, that appeal was irrelevant (E. III/e/cc). Second, an arbitration clause validly concluded between the original parties can bind a third party who never signed it, and this extension is a matter of substantive law, not of form, under the Convention as well (BGE 145 III 199 E. 2.4). Whether the extension was rightly admitted is judged under the law the parties chose or, failing that, the law of the seat, and the respondent must show that the arbitrator got it wrong (E. III/e/cc). Third, a respondent who relied on the agreement during the arbitration cannot discover its formal defects at enforcement (BGer 5A_441/2015 of 4 February 2016, E. 4.2). The Vaud debtor had himself commenced the arbitration on the strength of that agreement and agreed in a scheduling conference that section 7.4 was the operative clause; the forgery allegation surfaced only after the final award (E. III/e/cc).
The public policy objection to the size of the fee award failed too: arbitral costs offend public policy only where they are wholly out of proportion to what the winning party needed to spend (BGer 4A_277/2021 of 21 December 2021, E. 4.3.1), and USD 1.88 million for two sets of proceedings did not meet that bar (E. III/e/dd).
The property in the wife's name
Only assets that legally belong to the debtor can be attached (Art. 272(1)(3) DEBA). Third-party assets may nonetheless be attached if the creditor makes it probable that the third party is a straw man or, for real property, that the land register entry is inaccurate (Art. 10(1)(3) of the Federal Supreme Court's Ordinance on the Compulsory Realisation of Real Property, VZG). The Federal Supreme Court reads that condition broadly: it is met where the debtor transferred the property in circumstances that would justify avoidance under Art. 285 ff. DEBA, and the creditor need only make the avoidability probable (BGer 5A_754/2024 of 18 February 2025, E. 4.2). A gift made within one year before debt enforcement is avoidable without more (Art. 286(1) DEBA).
The dates carried the case. The award was made on 20 May 2023; the man had married in February 2023; the company's lawyers tried to serve his counsel in mid-September 2023; he gave away the property on 27 September 2023. The company filed its debt collection request on 25 September 2024, two days before the one-year period of Art. 286 DEBA ran out. The first judge did not believe that the gift honoured a long-standing plan to let the wife farm the land. The appellate court did not even reach the merits: the debtor had attacked the assessment of the evidence without pleading arbitrariness, the only ground on which facts are reviewed in an attachment appeal (Art. 320(b) CPC), so his complaint was inadmissible. For completeness, the court added that the finding was sound (E. III/f/cc).
What the decision does not settle
The decision is enforcement-friendly, and in two respects it goes further than the sources it cites. A creditor who builds a file on the Vaud reading may meet a less generous court elsewhere.
The first is the party affidavit. The commentaries the court cites define what certification must achieve, a confirmation that the copy matches the original; they do not say a party or its officer may give that confirmation itself. A notary who takes a sworn statement authenticates the signature; an apostille confirms the notary's capacity, not the truth of what was sworn. That US authorities had accepted the document is circular. The court's better point was the one it offered only for good measure: the award, whose authenticity nobody disputed, reproduces the clause verbatim. Even that is an indication of authenticity, not a substitute for the document (compare BGer 5A_441/2015, E. 4.2, where the respondent had itself relied on the agreement). Had the debtor disputed the award's authenticity as well, both arguments would have collapsed.
The second is the flat refusal of the debtor's request that the company be ordered to produce the original, treated as inadmissible under Art. 326(1) CPC while his new documents were admitted under Art. 278(3) DEBA (E. II/a and II/b). The Federal Supreme Court has upheld, as not arbitrary, the admission of new facts and evidence of both kinds in an attachment appeal (BGE 145 III 324 E. 6.6.4), and the prevailing view accepts that the appellate court may, exceptionally, take evidence itself. A blanket rule that new documents are admissible but requests for production never are is not clearly supported. The court hedged with "in any event", holding that the request could not have affected the outcome; as a general proposition the rule remains open to challenge.
Two further points are absent. Nobody invoked Art. VI NYC, which lets the enforcing court adjourn while a set-aside application is pending at the seat and, on the applicant's request, order the respondent to give security; the debtor asserted a pending US procedure against the clause, and the court did not address it. And the wife, whose property was frozen, does not appear at all, although Art. 278(1) DEBA lets an affected third party object. She keeps her remedies in the third-party claim procedure that must follow (Art. 10(2) VZG), but she will defend a valid acquisition after the freeze rather than before it.
Finally, none of this is final. Attachment decisions reach the Federal Supreme Court only for violation of constitutional rights (Art. 98 FSCA; BGE 135 III 232 E. 1.2), which is why the leading cases on this route never say more than "not arbitrary". A decision on definitive dismissal of the objection is not a provisional measure, and the Federal Supreme Court reviews the application of the Convention freely (BGer 5A_441/2015, E. 2; BGE 133 III 399 E. 1.5). The Vaud decision records that parallel dismissal proceedings are pending and that the debtor has asked for the original there as well. If the original ever matters, it will matter there.
What this means for a foreign party and their counsel
If you hold a foreign award and know of Swiss assets, the following sequence has proved itself:
Check that the award is binding. No ordinary appeal may be open at the seat; a set-aside application without a judicial stay does not matter. Obtain evidence of any stay, or of its absence.
Assemble the file before you move. A certified copy of the award, plus a legalised original held in reserve for the case that authenticity is disputed; a copy of the arbitration agreement certified by an independent officer under the law of the seat, not by a party affidavit; no apostille; no translation for an English award, though anything else needs one in the language of the canton. Add the documents that fix the amount: assignments from co-creditors, proof of payments by co-debtors, and the interest rate and start date from the award or the confirming judgment. Conversion into Swiss francs and the interest calculation are done here, at the rate of the filing date; in the Vaud case that meant crediting a USD 620,000 settlement payment by a co-debtor and applying the 6 per cent Virginia rate from 19 July 2023. The claim itself needs no separate showing where the title covers it (BGer 5A_918/2021 of 26 April 2022, E. 3.2.2.3; called not arbitrary by the Federal Supreme Court, treated as the rule by the prevailing view).
Locate the assets and pick the court. Attachment is granted by the court at the place of debt enforcement or where the assets are (Art. 272(1) DEBA).
Watch the suspect periods before you spring the surprise. A gift within one year and any transfer within five years before enforcement can be avoided (Art. 286(1) and 288(1) DEBA); for a transfer to a spouse, it is the spouse who must disprove knowledge of the debtor's intent (Art. 288(2) DEBA). The clock is stopped by the debt collection request, not by the attachment: the time taken by the preceding debt enforcement is left out of the count (Art. 288a(3) DEBA). Normally the attachment comes first and debt enforcement follows within ten days, so as not to warn the debtor. If a period is about to run out, reverse the order and accept the loss of surprise. That is what the company did in Vaud, with two days to spare.
Budget for security and liability. The creditor is liable to the debtor and to third parties for damage caused by an unjustified attachment, and the judge may order security (Art. 273(1) DEBA). In the Vaud case the company had to post CHF 117'299.90 against attachment claims of roughly CHF 1.17 million, about ten per cent, before the freeze took effect. Plan the cash.
Prosecute within ten days. Debt collection request within ten days of service of the attachment record; after an objection, request for dismissal within ten days of receiving the creditor's copy of the payment order (Art. 279(1) and (2) DEBA). These deadlines pause only during the objection proceedings and their appeal and during a Lugano exequatur (Art. 279(5) DEBA). An adjournment under Art. VI NYC does not stop them, so take every step anyway and ask the court to order security from the debtor.
Expect the debtor to object within ten days and to appeal, and expect nothing on the attachment route to become final. The binding decision comes in the dismissal proceedings. In the Vaud case the appeal alone took fifteen months, with court fees of CHF 2'700 and party costs of CHF 5'000 for the second instance.
For assets in a third party's name, plead the avoidance facts in the attachment application itself. Pull the land register for the debtor's known addresses and look back five years; set out the dates of marriage, transfer and service. The third party then has the objection (Art. 278(1) DEBA) and, after the freeze, the third-party claim procedure (Art. 10(2) VZG).
If you are on the other side, the mirror image applies. Raise formal objections to the arbitration agreement during the arbitration, not at enforcement. Dispute authenticity expressly and early, or not at all. In the attachment appeal, plead arbitrariness in the assessment of the evidence, or the court will not read your complaint. Save the substantive fight for the dismissal proceedings, where review is not confined to arbitrariness. And if a set-aside application is pending at the seat, obtain a judicial stay there; without one, it does nothing for you in Switzerland.
If you hold a foreign arbitral award and suspect there are assets in Switzerland, or if a Swiss attachment based on an award has just been served on you, we can assess the file against Art. IV and V before the first deadline runs. Get in touch.
