Public policy is the exception every losing party reaches for and few succeed with. Before the ADGM Courts it is a narrow, internationally-minded gate — not a back door to re-arguing the merits.
A safety valve, kept tight
Article V(2)(b) permits a court to refuse recognition and enforcement where doing so would be contrary to the public policy of the forum. It is the Convention's safety valve for its most fundamental values — but it is deliberately narrow, and the drafters, courts and commentators have resisted every attempt to widen it into a general merits review.
International, not domestic, public policy
Best international practice distinguishes a State's ordinary domestic public policy from the far smaller set of fundamental principles that engage international public policy for the purpose of enforcing foreign awards. Only a breach of that fundamental core — the essential principles of justice or morality, or the State's most basic legal order — should defeat enforcement. A common-law commercial forum such as the ADGM is naturally aligned with this restrained, internationally-oriented conception.
The gate opens only for a breach of a State’s most fundamental values — never for mere disagreement with the result.
What does not qualify
An error of law or fact by the tribunal is not a public-policy breach. A generous award, an unwelcome interpretation, a result a party considers commercially harsh — none engages the ground. The court does not review the merits under the banner of public policy; to allow it would unravel the Convention's whole design.
The onshore dimension
Where enforcement is ultimately aimed at onshore UAE assets, counsel should be alert that the public-policy conception applied at the point of onward execution has historically been articulated more broadly than the international standard. The strategy, therefore, is to build an award and a record that would survive the narrowest and the broadest formulations alike — and to choose the enforcement route with that in mind.
Key instruments: New York Convention 1958 (Article V(2)(b)); UNCITRAL Model Law; ILA Recommendations on public policy (persuasive guidance); ADGM Arbitration Regulations 2015. General information, not legal advice.