Enforcing Arbitral Awards in South Korea: From Award to Assets

A practitioner’s guide to the enforcement decision procedure under the Korean Arbitration Act, the New York Convention grounds as applied by the Korean Supreme Court, and the 2028 move to the Maritime and International Commercial Court

Won Jun Lee  |  Senior Foreign Counsel, Joowon Law Firm  |  Co-Founder, Foreign Legal Affairs Institute (FLAI)

October 2026

Key takeaways

•      Recognition of an arbitral award is automatic in Korea. Enforcement requires a court “enforcement decision” (집행결정) under Article 37(2) of the Arbitration Act, which since 30 November 2016 is a decision procedure rather than a full civil action.

•      Foreign awards are enforced under the New York Convention (Korea acceded in 1973 with the reciprocity and commercial reservations); Korea-seated awards under Article 38. The refusal grounds are exhaustive, construed narrowly, and never a vehicle for review of the merits.

•      The Supreme Court’s order of 28 November 2024 (2023Ma6248) is the current leading restatement: the enforcing court may clarify an ambiguous operative part from the award’s reasons; a party that arbitrated without objecting cannot later contest the arbitration agreement; and post-award defences such as payment or set-off may be raised inside the enforcement proceeding.

•      An immediate appeal does not suspend enforcement (Art. 37(7)); the appellate court may order a stay, with or without security. The enforcement decision is itself a title of execution under the Civil Execution Act.

•      From 1 March 2028, court matters relating to international commercial and maritime arbitrations, including enforcement applications, move to the new Maritime and International Commercial Court (Act No. 21459 of 17 March 2026, inserting Art. 7(5)).

1. Why enforcement in Korea deserves separate attention

An arbitral award binds the parties the moment it is rendered, but it cannot by itself reach a bank account in Seoul or a production line in Ulsan. Korea, like every Model Law jurisdiction, interposes a court procedure between the award and compulsory execution. That procedure is efficient and the courts are reliably pro-enforcement; Korean courts have refused enforcement of a foreign award in only a handful of reported cases over five decades. Yet the detail matters: which court to approach, what to file, what the court may and may not do with an imperfectly drafted operative part, which defences the award debtor can still raise, and how the enforcement decision is converted into attachment, garnishment or auction under the Civil Execution Act (민사집행법).

Three dates frame the current regime. Korea acceded to the New York Convention on 8 February 1973 (in force 9 May 1973), declaring both the reciprocity and the commercial reservations. The Arbitration Act (중재법, “KAA”) was rewritten in 1999 on the basis of the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law and substantially amended by Act No. 14176 of 29 May 2016 (effective 30 November 2016), which adopted the 2006 Model Law revisions and, critically for this article, replaced the former “enforcement judgment” (집행판결) with an “enforcement decision” (집행결정). Most recently, Act No. 21459 of 17 March 2026, which enters into force on 1 March 2028, routes arbitration-related court matters in international commercial and maritime disputes to a new specialist court.

2. The statutory architecture

2.1 The effect of an award: Article 35

Under Article 35 KAA an arbitral award has, as between the parties, the same effect as a final and conclusive judgment of a court. The 2016 amendment added a proviso: the rule does not apply where recognition or enforcement is refused under Article 38. Two consequences follow in practice. First, the award carries res judicata, so the award debtor cannot relitigate the merits in Korea. Second, under the prevailing view the claim established by the award benefits from the ten-year prescription period that Article 165(2) of the Civil Act (민법) extends to claims established by instruments having the same effect as a judgment, which is relevant where the underlying commercial claim would otherwise prescribe in three or five years.

2.2 Recognition versus enforcement: Article 37(1)–(2)

Article 37(1) provides that an award is recognised unless a ground for refusal under Article 38 or 39 exists; a separate recognition decision is available on application but is not a precondition to anything. Recognition therefore operates automatically, for instance when an award is pleaded as a defence or as the basis of a set-off in Korean litigation. Enforcement is different: Article 37(2) requires a court decision permitting execution on the basis of the award. The remainder of this article is concerned with that decision.

2.3 Domestic and foreign awards: Articles 38 and 39

The KAA distinguishes by seat. An award made in Korea (a “domestic award”) must be recognised or enforced unless (i) the resisting party proves one of the setting-aside grounds listed in Article 36(2)(1) (incapacity or invalid agreement; lack of proper notice or inability to present one’s case; excess of the submission; irregular composition or procedure) or proves that the award has not yet become binding or has been set aside by a court, or (ii) the court finds of its own motion that the dispute is not arbitrable under Korean law or that recognition or enforcement would be contrary to good morals and other social order of Korea (Art. 38, as restructured in 2016).

For awards made outside Korea, Article 39(1) provides that recognition and enforcement of a Convention award are governed by the New York Convention itself, so Article V supplies the exhaustive list of refusal grounds. Non-Convention foreign awards are enforced by analogy to foreign judgments under Article 217 of the Civil Procedure Act and Articles 26(1) and 27 of the Civil Execution Act (Art. 39(2)). Because of the Convention’s near-universal membership and Korea’s broad reading of “commercial”, Article 39(2) is rarely engaged. Note also Article 2(1) KAA: although the Act generally applies only where the seat is in Korea, Articles 37 and 39 apply regardless of the seat, so the procedure described below is the same for a Singapore, London or Hong Kong award as for a KCAB award.

3. Step one: the competent court

Article 7(4) KAA gives the award creditor a choice of venue for recognition and enforcement: (1) the court designated in the arbitration agreement; (2) the court having jurisdiction over the seat of arbitration; (3) the court of the place where the respondent’s property is located; or (4) the court of the respondent’s domicile or place of business (failing that, its residence, and failing that, its last known domicile or place of business). In practice the third head is the workhorse. Execution proceedings themselves are conducted by the execution court where the asset is situated, so filing where the assets are keeps the enforcement decision and the subsequent execution measures before the same district court.

The 2028 change. Act No. 21459 inserts a new Article 7(5). Where the dispute covered by the arbitration agreement is a maritime civil case or an international commercial case within the meaning of Article 40-10(1)(1) and (3) of the Court Organization Act (법원조직법), every reference to “court” in Article 7(1)–(4) is deemed to refer to the Maritime and International Commercial Court (해사국제상사법원), unless the arbitration agreement itself designates a particular district court or branch, in which case that designation controls. The amendment takes effect on 1 March 2028 and does not disturb the jurisdiction of cases already pending on that date (Addenda Arts. 1–2). For enforcement practice this means a specialist bench for the large majority of international awards, and it gives renewed significance to the first head of Article 7(4): parties who prefer a particular district court for Korea-related court support may now wish to say so in the clause.

4. Step two: the application and its documents

Article 37(3) requires the applicant to file the original or a copy of the award and, where the award is not in Korean, a Korean translation. The 2016 amendment deliberately lightened the former requirements: the applicant no longer has to file the arbitration agreement, and the translation no longer has to be “duly certified”. For a Convention award, Article IV of the Convention continues to speak of a duly authenticated original award and the original arbitration agreement (or certified copies), and the cautious course is still to bring both. Korean courts have not treated the Article IV formalities as a trap for the unwary, and after the Supreme Court’s 2024 order (discussed in Section 8) the existence of the arbitration agreement is seldom a live issue where the debtor participated in the arbitration.

A foreign applicant should expect to document its corporate existence and the authority of its signatories (registry extract, certificate of incumbency or equivalent), notarised and apostilled, together with a power of attorney in favour of Korean counsel. Representation before Korean courts is reserved to Korean-licensed attorneys (변호사); foreign counsel’s role is to coordinate, to brief the arbitration record, and to manage the client. Where the respondent is also foreign, service of the application abroad under the Hague Service Convention can add several months, which should be built into the timetable. Fee and translation costs are modest relative to the sums usually at stake, but a certified-quality Korean translation of a long award should be commissioned early, ideally during the final phase of the arbitration rather than after the award arrives.

5. Step three: the hearing and what the court may do

Article 37(4) obliges the court to fix either a hearing date (변론기일) or an examination date (심문기일) at which both parties may participate, and to give notice to the parties; Article 37(5) requires the decision to state reasons, which may be summarised where no full hearing was held. The move from judgment to decision was intended to shorten proceedings, and in uncontested cases it has: an unopposed application is commonly disposed of within a few months of filing. The Supreme Court has made clear, however, that the change of form did not change the substance of the review. The standard applied before and after 2016 is essentially the same, and the parties must plead and prove their positions at the hearing or examination date just as they did under the former judgment procedure (Supreme Court Order 2020Ma7667, 15 Oct. 2021, applied in 2023Ma6248).

Two principles bound the court’s task. The first is the prohibition on révision au fond, settled since the Supreme Court’s first major Convention decision in 1990 and repeated in every leading case since: errors of fact or law by the tribunal are not grounds for refusal (Supreme Court 89Daka20252, 10 Apr. 1990; 2006Da20290, 28 May 2009). The second, articulated with unusual clarity in the November 2024 order, concerns awards whose operative part does not meet the degree of specificity the Civil Execution Act expects of a Korean judgment. Because awards are not written by Korean judges and are frequently governed by foreign law, the Supreme Court held that the enforcing court may interpret an unclear or incomplete dispositive section by reference to the award’s reasons and grant enforcement on the clarified content; what it may not do is supplement the award by re-examining the tribunal’s findings of fact or law, or extend, analogise or alter an operative part that is already clear (2023Ma6248, citing Supreme Court 99Da13577, 13584, 10 Apr. 2001).

The facts illustrate the point. An ICC award rendered in proceedings conducted in Hong Kong ordered the sellers under a share purchase agreement for a Korean insurer to pay the buyers KRW 166.6 billion in damages plus costs in four currencies, without spelling out whether the liability was joint, several or proportionate. The Seoul High Court read the reasons, concluded that each seller was liable to each buyer for the whole, added the total recoverable amount to the operative part of its enforcement decision, and the Supreme Court approved. The order thus puts to rest the concern created a decade earlier, when a Seoul district court refused to enforce an injunctive award for want of specificity and had to be reversed on appeal. The lesson for drafting is nonetheless the opposite of complacency: an operative part that states fixed sums per obligor, the currency, the interest rate and period, and the nature of co-obligors’ liability in terms will be enforced faster and with less room for argument.

6. Step four: appeal and stay

An enforcement decision is subject to immediate appeal (즉시항고) under Article 37(6). The appeal must be lodged within one week of notification of the decision (Civil Procedure Act Art. 444) and lies to the High Court; a further re-appeal (재항고) to the Supreme Court is available on questions of law only. Crucially, Article 37(7) provides that the appeal has no suspensive effect. The appellate court (or the first-instance court while the record remains with it) may, until it rules on the appeal, order a stay of the decision or of all or part of the execution procedure, with or without security, or may order execution to continue against the provision of security; that ancillary order is itself unappealable (Art. 37(8)).

The practical consequence is asymmetric. The award creditor may obtain an execution clause and commence attachment immediately upon the first-instance decision. A debtor intending to appeal should therefore move for a stay at once and should expect to be asked for security, typically by cash deposit or a guarantee insurance policy accepted by the court, in an amount reflecting the award. Debtors who delay the stay application frequently find that bank accounts have been attached before the appellate court is seised.

7. Step five: from enforcement decision to execution

Once rendered, the enforcement decision is a title of execution in its own right. Article 56(1) of the Civil Execution Act lists among the “other titles of execution” a judicial decision that can be challenged only by appeal (항고), and Article 57 applies Articles 28 to 55 of the Act to such titles. The creditor therefore applies to the court clerk for an execution clause (집행문, Art. 28), ensures that the title has been served on the debtor (Art. 39), and then has the full toolkit of Korean compulsory execution available: compulsory auction of real property (Art. 78 et seq.), seizure of movables (Art. 188 et seq.), and, most often, attachment of monetary claims such as bank deposits and trade receivables with collection or assignment orders (Arts. 223 and 229). Where assets are hard to locate, the creditor may apply for an order compelling the debtor to disclose its assets (재산명시, Art. 61), for a court-led asset inquiry across financial institutions and registries (재산조회, Art. 74), and for entry of the debtor in the register of defaulting debtors (Art. 70).

Currency and interest. An award denominated in a foreign currency is enforced as such; under Article 378 of the Civil Act the debtor may discharge a foreign-currency obligation in Korean won at the exchange rate prevailing at the place and time of payment. Interest, by contrast, deserves attention before the award is rendered. The enforcement decision adds nothing to the award: the creditor recovers only the interest the tribunal awarded, for the period it awarded it. Since 2016 the KAA has expressly empowered tribunals seated in Korea to award delay interest as they consider appropriate (Art. 34-3). In the LSF-KDIC litigation the Supreme Court held that Korea has no mandatory rule requiring post-award interest irrespective of the governing law, so that enforcing an award under a governing law that provided for no post-award interest was not contrary to public policy (2016Da49931, 13 Dec. 2018). Claimants should therefore request, in terms, interest running until actual payment.

Protective measures before and during enforcement. Article 10 KAA confirms that a party to an arbitration agreement may apply to a Korean court for provisional measures before or during the arbitration, and under Article 2(1) this applies whatever the seat. Provisional attachment (가압류) under Article 276 et seq. of the Civil Execution Act is the standard tool: it is granted on an ex parte application upon a prima facie showing of the claim and of the need for preservation, usually against security (Art. 280). A final award is powerful evidence of the claim, and a provisional attachment lodged on the day the award is received will often decide whether there is anything left to execute against by the time the enforcement decision becomes final.

8. Resisting enforcement: how the grounds actually operate

The grounds for refusal are exhaustive, and the Korean Supreme Court has consistently read them against the resisting party. The table summarises the statutory source of each ground and the standard the courts apply.

Ground	Source	How Korean courts apply it
Incapacity or invalid arbitration agreement	NYC Art. V(1)(a); KAA Art. 38(1)(a) via Art. 36(2)(1)(a)	A party that took part in the arbitration without a timely objection to the existence or validity of the agreement is treated as having concluded a fresh agreement or waived the objection, and cannot raise it at the enforcement stage (Supreme Court Order 2023Ma6248, 28 Nov. 2024; Art. 17(2) KAA; Supreme Court 2005Da12452, 27 May 2005). Pathological clauses are read generously in favour of arbitration (Supreme Court 2024Da243172, 23 Jan. 2025).
Lack of notice; inability to present one’s case	NYC Art. V(1)(b); KAA Art. 36(2)(1)(b)	Not every infringement of the right to be heard qualifies; refusal is confined to cases where the infringement is so conspicuous that it cannot be tolerated, and the standard is that of the enforcing state (Supreme Court 89Daka20252, 10 Apr. 1990, reaffirmed in 2023Ma6248). For Korea-seated awards, deemed service to a last-known address under Art. 4(3) KAA presupposes that an “appropriate inquiry” into the addressee’s whereabouts was actually made (Supreme Court Order 2020Ma5970, 7 Sept. 2022).
Decision beyond the scope of the submission	NYC Art. V(1)(c); KAA Art. 36(2)(1)(c)	Severable parts within the submission remain enforceable. The Supreme Court declined to find excess of mandate where the counterclaim relief, read as a whole, covered the damages ultimately awarded (2023Ma6248).
Irregular composition of the tribunal or procedure	NYC Art. V(1)(d); KAA Art. 36(2)(1)(d)	A mere departure from the parties’ agreement or from a default rule is not enough; the breach must infringe the party’s procedural rights to a degree that is conspicuous and intolerable (Supreme Court 2017Da238837, 22 Dec. 2017; 2016Da49931, 13 Dec. 2018). The composition of the tribunal is treated as a core element of the parties’ bargain (Supreme Court 2017Da240991, 10 Apr. 2018).
Award not yet binding, set aside or suspended	NYC Art. V(1)(e); KAA Art. 38(1)(b) (added 2016)	The 2016 amendment aligned the domestic-award regime with the Convention by adding “not yet binding” and “set aside by a court” as refusal grounds. Where a set-aside application is pending at a foreign seat, the court may adjourn under NYC Art. VI; the award creditor can ask for security.
Non-arbitrability	NYC Art. V(2)(a); KAA Art. 36(2)(2)(a); Art. 3(1)	Examined ex officio. Since 2016, arbitrable disputes are defined as disputes over property rights and non-property disputes that the parties may settle by compromise (Art. 3(1)), which has removed most of the earlier uncertainty.
Public policy	NYC Art. V(2)(b); KAA Art. 36(2)(2)(b)	Examined ex officio but construed with the stability of the international trading order in mind; the question is whether the concrete result of enforcement would offend Korea’s good morals and social order (Supreme Court 93Da53054, 14 Feb. 1995; 2000Da35795, 8 Dec. 2000). Two specialised doctrines sit under this head: the fraud test (2006Da20290) and post-award “claim-objection” grounds (2001Da20134; 2016Da49931; 2023Ma6248), both discussed below.

8.1 Post-award defences inside the enforcement proceeding

The most distinctive feature of Korean enforcement practice is that the award debtor may raise, within the enforcement proceeding itself, grounds that arose after the award and that would in Korean execution law be pleaded in a “claim-objection” action (청구이의의 소, Civil Execution Act Art. 44). The doctrine originates in Supreme Court 2001Da20134 (11 Apr. 2003): because the enforcement court determines whether the award is enforceable as at the time of its decision, allowing execution to proceed on an award whose debt has since been discharged would offend the basic principles of Korean law and therefore falls within the public policy exception in Article V(2)(b). Payment, set-off declared after the award, release and compromise are the typical examples.

Two refinements matter. First, mere inconsistency between the award and the true substantive position is not enough, nor is the creditor’s knowledge of it (Supreme Court 2004Da8814, 23 Dec. 2005). Second, in the LSF-KDIC case the Supreme Court extended the doctrine to circumstances that would constitute a ground for retrial of a judgment under Article 451(1)(viii) of the Civil Procedure Act. There, roughly one third of a Japan-seated ICC award consisted of the respondent’s 50% share of corporate taxes assessed on a Korean land sale; after the award, the tax assessments were reduced by more than 90% in administrative litigation. The Court held that enforcing the award in full would be manifestly unjust and an abuse of rights contrary to public policy, and remanded for recalculation (2016Da49931). The litigation, which had begun with a first-instance refusal on different public policy grounds in 2012 and had already been to the Supreme Court once on the validity of the arbitration agreement (2013Da74868, 29 Oct. 2015), ended with the Seoul High Court ordering enforcement of the adjusted amount in August 2019 (2018Na10878).

It was open to question whether this doctrine would survive the 2016 move to a decision procedure, which does not naturally accommodate full evidential contests. The Supreme Court answered in November 2024 that it does: since the parties must in any event argue and prove their case at a hearing or examination date, and since it is more economical to decide such defences in the enforcement proceeding than to force the debtor into a separate claim-objection action after the decision becomes final, claim-objection grounds may be pleaded as defences in the decision procedure (2023Ma6248, applying 2001Da20134 and 2020Ma7667). In that case the defence failed on the facts, because the debtor could not show that an earlier attachment and assignment order over future deposits had actually satisfied the debt. Grounds arising after the enforcement decision has become final remain available through a claim-objection action under Articles 44 and 57 of the Civil Execution Act.

8.2 Fraud

A debtor alleging that the award was procured by fraud faces a deliberately high threshold. The enforcing court may not, under the guise of examining fraud, re-try the tribunal’s findings. Refusal without a prior annulment at the seat is permitted only where three cumulative requirements are met: the applicant’s punishable fraudulent conduct in the arbitration is established clearly by objective evidence of definite probative value; the opposing party, without fault, was unaware of the fraud and so could not contest it in the arbitration; and the fraud bears materially on the issues decided (Supreme Court 2006Da20290, 28 May 2009, reaffirmed in 2023Ma6248). Allegations that the opposing party “misled” the tribunal on a contested point of contractual interpretation, as the respondents argued in the 2024 case, do not come close.

9. Interaction with setting-aside proceedings

For Korea-seated awards the enforcement decision and the setting-aside action (중재판정 취소의 소) run on parallel tracks before the same courts. Article 36(1) makes the setting-aside action the exclusive means of recourse against the award; Article 36(3) requires it to be brought within three months of receipt of the award (or of any correction, interpretation or additional award under Article 34); and Article 36(4) bars a setting-aside action once a Korean recognition or enforcement decision has become final. Because the grounds in Articles 36(2) and 38 are the same, the two proceedings are routinely argued together and the outcome of one effectively determines the other. The timing rules reward speed on both sides: a creditor who obtains a final enforcement decision forecloses annulment, while a debtor who lets the three-month period lapse is confined to the enforcement proceeding and to the ex officio grounds.

For foreign awards, a pending setting-aside application at the seat is not itself a ground for refusal, but Article V(1)(e) of the Convention applies if the award is set aside or suspended, and Article VI permits the Korean court to adjourn and to order security. Korean courts are not known to have enforced an award annulled at its seat, and a creditor in that position should expect refusal or adjournment rather than a Chromalloy-style outcome.

10. Interim measures and emergency relief

The 2016 amendment introduced a full regime for tribunal-ordered interim measures (Arts. 18 to 18-8). A party may apply to the court for a decision recognising or enforcing an interim measure of a tribunal (Art. 18-7(1)); refusal is confined to the grounds listed in Article 18-8(1), the court may not examine the substance of the measure (Art. 18-8(2)), and execution follows the Civil Execution Act rules on preservative measures (Art. 18-7(4)). The regime is, however, available only where the seat is in Korea: Article 2(1) extends extraterritorial application to Articles 9, 10, 37 and 39, not to Chapter III-2. Interim measures of a foreign-seated tribunal, and emergency arbitrator decisions under institutional rules, therefore have no statutory route to enforcement in Korea. The remedy is to apply directly to the Korean court for provisional attachment or a provisional injunction under Article 10 KAA and the Civil Execution Act, which the court will decide on its own standards.

11. Checklist: drafting and strategy

For award creditors

•      Draft the dispositive relief for Korean execution: fixed sums per obligor, the currency, the interest rate and period (expressly running to actual payment, invoking Art. 34-3 for Korea-seated cases), and unambiguous language on joint and several liability. Identify Korean respondents by their registered corporate name and registration number.

•      Map the debtor’s Korean assets during the arbitration and lodge a provisional attachment (가압류) as soon as the award is received; do not wait for the enforcement decision.

•      Commission the Korean translation of the award before it is rendered, so that the application can be filed within days.

•      File where the assets are (Art. 7(4) head 3) so that the enforcement decision and execution measures remain before one court; for applications filed on or after 1 March 2028 in international commercial matters, expect the Maritime and International Commercial Court.

•      Keep the ten-year horizon of Civil Act Article 165(2) in view, and remember that a final enforcement decision bars any later setting-aside action against a Korea-seated award (Art. 36(4)).

For award debtors

•      Raise jurisdictional and procedural objections in the arbitration itself, within the time limits of Articles 5 and 17(2) KAA; objections first raised at the enforcement stage are treated as waived (2023Ma6248).

•      For a Korea-seated award, decide within three months whether to bring a setting-aside action (Art. 36(3)); the grounds are the same as in the enforcement proceeding and the two should be pleaded consistently.

•      Document every post-award payment, set-off or release and plead it in the enforcement proceeding as a claim-objection defence; later-arising grounds go to a claim-objection action under Civil Execution Act Articles 44 and 57.

•      If appealing, apply for a stay under Article 37(7) immediately and be ready to post security; the appeal alone will not stop attachment.

12. Outlook

Korea’s enforcement regime has matured into one of the more predictable in Asia. The 2016 amendment removed the procedural friction of a full civil action; the Supreme Court has since filled the gaps with a coherent body of doctrine that is strict on the refusal grounds yet pragmatic about the realities of foreign-drafted awards; and from 2028 a specialist court will hear the international caseload. The practical risks that remain lie less in the law than in preparation: an operative part that is unclear about who owes what, an award that is silent on post-award interest, assets that have moved before protective measures were sought, or objections that were saved for the enforcement stage and are therefore lost. Each of these is within the parties’ control long before the award is signed.

Note on sources. Statutory references are to the Arbitration Act (중재법) as amended through Act No. 21459 of 17 March 2026, the Civil Execution Act (민사집행법), the Civil Procedure Act (민사소송법) and the Civil Act (민법); translations of statutory text and of judicial reasoning are the author’s. Korean cases are cited by court, case number and decision date; “Da” (다) denotes a Supreme Court judgment on a final appeal and “Ma” (마) a Supreme Court order on a re-appeal in a decision procedure.

This article is published by the Foreign Legal Affairs Institute (FLAI) of Joowon Law Firm (법무법인(유한) 주원) for general information only. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such; specific advice should be sought on the facts of any particular matter. Mr. Lee represents clients on U.S. laws and international laws only.