Correcting an Arbitration Award in Israel: Errors, Omissions and the 30-Day Window

An award lands in your inbox and something in it is plainly wrong. Not wrong in the sense that you lost. Wrong in the sense that the operative paragraph says NIS 240,000 while every page of reasoning that precedes it works with NIS 2,400,000. Or the respondent is named by its trading name rather than the registered name that appears at the Registrar of Companies, so the Execution Office will not open a file against it. Or the counterclaim you argued across two hearings simply is not mentioned anywhere.

Foreign parties usually assume this is what appeals exist for. In Israel it generally is not. Section 21 of the Arbitration Law makes the award binding on the parties and their successors as ma'aseh beit din (res judicata) from the moment it is delivered, and the arbitrator's authority is spent. Section 22 is the deliberately narrow exception, and it comes with a clock that a party sitting in New York, London or Sydney can burn through while still arranging a translation.

1. What Section 22 of the Arbitration Law Actually Allows

The Arbitration Law 5728-1968 (chok haborerut) governs domestic arbitration seated in Israel, and it still governs most international disputes here unless the parties fall under the newer International Commercial Arbitration Law 5784-2024. Section 22 sits at the end of the chapter on the award itself, directly after the section that makes the award binding.

On the application of a party, Section 22(a) permits the arbitrator to do three things:

• Correct a clerical error, a slip of the pen, an omission, or a mistake in the description of a person or property, in a date, in a number or in a calculation.
• Complete the award where a matter that was referred to the arbitrator for decision was left undecided.
• Clarify a point or a matter that the award left unclear.

The qualifying words carry more weight than the list: none of this may change the substance of the decision. That single limitation is what separates a Section 22 application that succeeds in three weeks from one that gets refused and quietly damages your position in the set-aside proceedings that follow.

Note also who starts the process. Section 22 operates on a party's application. An arbitrator who spots their own typo a week after issuing the award has no power to fix it unilaterally, which is why Israeli arbitrators who notice an error typically write to both sides and invite an application rather than issuing a corrected version on their own initiative.

2. Correction, Completion and Clarification Are Three Different Repairs

Israeli practitioners treat these as separate applications with separate standards, and drafting them as one undifferentiated complaint is a common own goal.

Correction covers the case where the award says one thing and the arbitrator obviously meant another, and you can see it from the award itself without hearing further argument. Interest computed at 4% across the reasoning but written as 0.4% in the operative clause. A nine-digit company number transposed. VAT added at 17% in an award where the arbitrator applied 18% throughout, which is the rate in force in Israel since 1 January 2025. A property described by the wrong gush and helka (block and parcel) numbers, which will stop any registration at the Land Registry (Tabu).

Completion covers silence. The arbitrator ruled on the claim but not the counterclaim. Principal was awarded but the award says nothing about interest and linkage (ribit v'hatzmada) that the claimant expressly demanded. Costs and the arbitrator's own fees were argued and then never allocated. Each of these is a matter referred for decision on which no decision was given.

Clarification covers wording that cannot be executed. An operative clause reading "the respondent shall transfer the shares to the claimant" leaves an Execution Office registrar with no idea which shares, by what date, or against what payment. Vague relief is not a theoretical problem in Israel: enforcement officials decline to act on instructions they cannot apply mechanically.

3. The 30-Day Clock, and Why Foreign Parties Lose It

Section 22(b) gives a party 30 days from the day the award was delivered to them to apply to the arbitrator. Section 22(c) then requires the arbitrator to rule within 30 days of the application. The other side is entitled to respond before the arbitrator decides, which is why a well-drafted application anticipates the objection rather than waiting for it.

Delivery starts the clock, not comprehension. An award emailed in Hebrew to a party in Chicago on a Thursday afternoon starts running that day. The three weeks spent finding a translator, the two weeks waiting for the general counsel to get back from leave, and the week spent locating Israeli counsel all come out of the same 30 days.

Two further points that cost foreign parties real money:

• The 45-day period in Section 27(a) for applying to set the award aside runs from delivery as well. Both clocks start on the same day and neither waits for the other.
• The Arbitration Law contains no provision suspending the 45 days while a Section 22 application is pending. Do not assume a correction application buys you time at the District Court, because the statute does not say that it does.

4. What Section 22 Will Not Fix

Applications fail most often because the complaint is substantive dressed as clerical. The following are outside Section 22 entirely:

• Disagreement with findings of fact. An arbitrator who preferred the respondent's witness has made a decision, not an error of description.
• Misapplication of law. Where the agreement obliged the arbitrator to decide according to law and they did not, the ground is Section 24(7), argued before the District Court.
• New evidence. Documents found after the award do not reopen the arbitration. In rare cases they support the residual ground in Section 24(10).
• Excess of authority. An arbitrator who ruled on a dispute outside the clause is challenged under Section 24(3), not corrected under Section 22.
• Missing reasons. Where the agreement required a reasoned award and none was given, that is Section 24(6).
• Procedural unfairness. Denial of a proper opportunity to argue or bring evidence falls under Section 24(4).
• A late award. An award given after the period for giving it expired is attacked under Section 24(8).

There is a strategic cost to getting this wrong. A Section 22 application that reads as an invitation to reconsider tells the arbitrator, and later the District Court, that you were unhappy with the outcome rather than with a defect. Keep the two complaints in separate documents.

5. Filing the Application: A Step-by-Step Process

There is no prescribed form. The application goes to the arbitrator directly, not to a court, and the practical sequence looks like this:

1. Fix the delivery date in writing. Record the date and method by which the award reached you and keep the transmission evidence. Every deadline in this article runs from that date, and it is the first thing an opponent will contest.
2. Calendar both dates the same day. Day 30 for Section 22(b) and day 45 for Section 27(a), counted in calendar days.
3. Address the application to the arbitrator and copy every other party. An application sent only to the arbitrator invites a complaint of ex parte contact and can itself become a ground of challenge.
4. Identify the exact paragraph and the exact limb. Cite the paragraph number of the award, quote the words at issue, and state whether you are seeking correction, completion or clarification.
5. Propose the replacement wording. Give the arbitrator a clean sentence to adopt. Applications that describe a problem without offering a solution take longer and are more often refused.
6. Deal with the substance point head-on. Explain in a sentence or two why the fix leaves the outcome untouched. This is the test the arbitrator has to satisfy, so do not make them construct the argument for you.
7. Budget for the arbitrator's fee. Ad hoc arbitrators in Israel, frequently retired judges, commonly charge between NIS 1,500 and NIS 6,000 for deciding a Section 22 application, or bill it at an hourly rate in the region of NIS 900 to NIS 2,500 plus VAT. Institutional arbitrations follow the institution's own fee schedule.
8. File a protective set-aside application if day 45 approaches. Where the arbitrator has not ruled and the 45 days are running out, file at the District Court and ask for a stay pending the correction rather than letting the window close.

6. When the District Court Corrects the Award Instead

Section 22 is not the only correction mechanism. Under Section 22(d), the District Court may itself correct an award in the course of proceedings to confirm it or to set it aside. In Israel, arbitration matters are heard by the District Court (beit mishpat mehozi), and the procedure is governed by the Arbitration Procedure Regulations 5729-1968.

Two features of the court's approach matter to anyone weighing their options:

• Section 26(a) allows the court to dismiss a set-aside application even where a ground under Section 24 is established, if it takes the view that no miscarriage of justice was caused. A defect that changes nothing in practice rarely brings an award down.
• Section 26(b) pushes the court towards the least destructive remedy. Rather than setting an award aside in full, the court will set aside part of it, complete it, correct it, or return it to the arbitrator where the defect can be repaired that way.

The practical consequence is that a foreign party who arrives at the District Court asking for total annulment over a numerical slip is likely to leave with a corrected award and an adverse costs order. Judges here read Section 26(b) as an instruction to preserve arbitral outcomes wherever repair is possible.

On timing, Section 27(a) sets 45 days from delivery of the award for a set-aside application, and the court may extend that period only for special reasons. Where the ground relied on is Section 24(10), which covers grounds on which a court would set aside a final judgment, Section 27(b) measures the period from the date the underlying facts were discovered rather than from delivery. Court fees are fixed by the Courts (Fees) Regulations 5767-2007 rather than calculated on the amount in dispute, so budget roughly NIS 1,000 to NIS 1,700 for the filing and confirm the current tariff before you pay.

7. Correction, Setting Aside or Appeal: Choosing the Right Route

Israeli arbitration offers four post-award routes, and they are not alternatives you can pick between freely. Each has its own trigger.

• Section 22 correction. Available in every arbitration, no agreement required. Cheap, fast, and limited to defects that leave the result intact. 30 days.
• Section 21A appeal before an arbitrator. Available only where the parties agreed in advance that the award may be appealed to a second arbitrator. Requires a reasoned award, and the procedure follows the Second Addendum to the Law.
• Section 29B appeal to the court. Available only where the parties agreed in advance that the award may be reviewed by the District Court for a fundamental error of law causing injustice. It also requires a reasoned award and a recorded proceeding, which is why parties who want this route must build it into the arbitration clause from the outset.
• Section 24 set-aside application. Available in every arbitration, on ten defined grounds. 45 days, District Court, and expensive: a contested set-aside application with a hearing commonly runs from NIS 25,000 to NIS 70,000 in legal fees depending on complexity.

Where a defect fits both Section 22 and Section 24, the usual sequencing is correction first. It is quicker, it keeps the findings you won, and a refused Section 22 application does not weaken a later set-aside argument. The reverse is not true. An award already annulled cannot be corrected.

8. Institutional Rules, the 2024 Law and Awards You Need Abroad

Not every arbitration seated in Israel is governed by Section 22 alone.

Institutional arbitrations. Where the parties chose the Israeli Institute of Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) or another institution, the institution's rules contain their own correction and interpretation provisions, and those rules operate alongside the Law. Read the rules before you calculate a deadline, because an institutional period can be shorter than the statutory one and is sometimes calculated from dispatch rather than receipt.

Arbitrations under the International Commercial Arbitration Law 5784-2024. Israel's 2024 statute adopts the UNCITRAL Model Law framework for qualifying international commercial arbitrations. The Model Law provides its own correction mechanism in Article 33: a party has 30 days from receipt to request correction of a computational, clerical or typographical error, and 30 days to request an additional award covering claims presented but omitted, with the tribunal given 60 days to make that additional award. Interpretation of a specific point is available where the parties agreed to it. Do not apply Section 22 arithmetic to an arbitration governed by the 2024 Law without checking which regime your seat and agreement place you in.

Awards destined for enforcement abroad. Israel is a party to the New York Convention 1958, and an Israeli award is enforceable in more than 170 jurisdictions. An internally inconsistent award is a gift to a resisting party at the enforcement stage, particularly under Article V(1)(c) where the objection is that the award deals with matters beyond the submission. Fixing the defect in Israel, before enforcement begins, is materially cheaper than litigating its meaning in a foreign court.

A last point for foreign parties. Very few expensive post-award cases turn on picking the wrong section. They turn on a party opening the award, reading the bottom line, and getting round to the rest of it a month later. Israeli post-award deadlines are short, they are counted in calendar days rather than business days, and they start when the document reaches you rather than when you understand it. Read the operative paragraphs the day the award arrives. Check them against the reasoning and against the relief you actually asked for. If something looks wrong, get an Israeli view inside the first week.