§ 172.083.Interim Measures Ordered by Arbitration Tribunal

The tribunal’s own power to protect the dispute while it is being decided.

The measure must be requested by a party. The tribunal does not act on its own under this section.

The standard is the tribunal’s judgment of necessity — an interim measure of protection the tribunal considers necessary concerning the subject matter of the dispute.

The subject matter is the limit. The measure concerns what is in dispute, not the parties’ affairs generally.

Security may be required in connection with the measure, which protects the party against whom it runs if the measure turns out to have been unwarranted.

The parties may contract out, since the section applies except as agreed.

An arbitral order needs a court to be enforced against a resisting party. A tribunal has no sheriff.

Section 172.175(b) supplies the enforcement route. A party may ask the court to enforce an interim measure ordered under this section, and the court grants enforcement as provided by the law applicable to that type of relief.

The court may also act on its own terms. Section 172.175(a) allows a party to seek interim protection from a court before or during the arbitration.

The two provisions together are how urgent relief works here — the tribunal orders, and the court enforces or supplements.