Originally from Chamber of Arbitration of Milan Rules: A Commentary

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ARTICLE 33 – PARTIAL AWARD AND INTERIM AWARD

1. The Arbitral Tribunal may render one or more awards, including of a partial or interim nature.

2. Awards contemplated by the previous Article shall not affect the time limit for filing the final award, unless a request for extension is filed with the Chamber of Arbitration.

3. The provisions of these Rules on the award shall apply to partial and interim awards. An interim award shall not contain a decision on the costs of the proceedings and on the legal costs.

1. Introduction

1.1. With the increasing complexity of arbitration proceedings, it has become more and more common to decide issues in separate phases. Phasing, or “bifurcation”, of the proceedings, consists for the Arbitral Tribunal in resolving the issues in dispute in several awards rather than in one single award.

1.2. The typical example of a “bifurcation” is when the Arbitral Tribunal decides to rule on a jurisdictional objection before dealing with the merits. In such a scenario, the Arbitral Tribunal’s jurisdictional award may be final (if the Tribunal decides to decline jurisdiction) or partial (if the Tribunal entirely or partially retains jurisdiction). Other frequent scenarios are the decision to render a preliminary award on the applicable rules of law, on time limitation, on the principle of liability (as opposed to quantum), on costs, or on any other matter that the Arbitral Tribunal deems appropriate to decide on a preliminary basis.

1.3. The term “bifurcation” is in reality improper to define the situation in which the proceedings take place in a preliminary phase on part of the issues in dispute to then continue – as the case may be – on others. In the proper sense of the term, a “bifurcation” would only take place if the proceedings were to take place on parallel tracks with respect to different issues, with the Arbitral Tribunal rendering separate awards on each of them. Such a scenario is however infrequent. The term “phasing” is, as a consequence, technically more accurate to define the situation of a Tribunal deciding to adjudicate part of the issues in dispute before others.