1. Procedure

Article 29 of the 1998 ICC Rules provides:

'1. On its own initiative, the Arbitral Tribunal may correct a clerical, computational or typographical error, or any errors of similar nature contained in an Award, provided such correction is submitted for approval to the Court within 30 days of the date of such Award.

2. Any application of a party for the correction of an error of the kind referred to in Article 29(1), or for the interpretation of an Award, must be made to the Secretariat within 30 days of the receipt of the Award by such party, in a number of copies as stated in Article 3(1). After transmittal of the application to the Arbitral Tribunal, it shall grant the other party a short time limit, normally not exceeding 30 days, from the receipt of the application by that party to submit any comments thereon. If the Arbitral Tribunal decides to correct or interpret the Award, it shall submit its decision in draft form to the Court not later than 30 days following the expiration of the time limit for the receipt of any comments from the other party or within such other period as the Court may decide.

3. The decision to correct or to interpret the Award shall take the form of an addendum and shall constitute part of the Award. The provisions of Articles 25, 27 and 28 shall apply mutatis mutandis.'

Furthermore, Appendix III Article 2(7) provides:

'In the case of an application under Article 29(2) of the Rules, the Court may fix an advance to cover additional fees and expenses of the Arbitral Tribunal and may subordinate the transmission of such application to the Arbitral Tribunal to the prior cash payment in full to the ICC of such advance. The Court shall fix at its discretion any possible fees of the arbitrator when approving the decision of the Arbitral Tribunal.'

If, upon receipt of an application, the Secretariat considers that, in view of the particular circumstances of the case, an advance to cover additional fees and expenses of the Arbitral Tribunal is warranted, it shall submit the matter to the Court. Otherwise, the application is to be transmitted directly to the Arbitral Tribunal.

After the Arbitral Tribunal has carried out its examination of the application in accordance with Article 29(2), it shall submit its decision in draft form to the Secretariat.

If the Arbitral Tribunal decides to correct or interpret the Award, this shall be done in the form of an addendum ('Addendum'), which shall constitute part of the Award.

If the Arbitral Tribunal arrives at the conclusion that the Award does not need to be corrected or interpreted, its decision shall be set out in a document entitled 'Decision'.

An Addendum or a Decision shall contain the reasons upon which it is based (Article 25(2)). It shall also include operative conclusions ('dispositif'), which set out any modification of the operative conclusions in the relevant Award or a finding that the application is rejected. The Court will scrutinize this Addendum or the Decision (Article 27), after which it will be signed by the arbitrators (Article 25(1) and (3)) and notified to the parties by the Secretariat (Article 28).

If the Court did not ask for an advance on costs at the time when the application was submitted to the Secretariat, it can, in exceptional circumstances, take a decision on costs at the time of the scrutiny and make the notification of the Addendum or the Decision contingent upon the payment by one or both parties of the costs fixed by the Court.

2. General Considerations

2.1. This Note applies to all applications filed from the date of this Note irrespective of whether the 1998 or a previous version of the Rules governs the arbitration proceedings.

2.2. In all cases the Arbitral Tribunal must first ensure that mandatory rules of law at the place of arbitration do not preclude the correction or interpretation of an Award by the Tribunal.

2.3. Where the relevant national law or court practice provides for specific situations in which an Arbitral Tribunal may render certain decisions other than corrections or interpretation regarding an Award which had been approved and notified, such situations shall be treated in the spirit of this Note.