The six-month time limit for challenging an arbitral award, provided for by Article 828, paragraph 2, of the Code of Civil Procedure, runs from the date of the last signature on the award and not from its communication to the parties or from its filing, in accordance with the letter and ratio of the provision, as well as with the structure of the entire arbitration system, given that the award produces the effects of a judgment rendered by the judicial authority precisely from the date of its last signature.
The inadmissibility of a challenge to an arbitral award on grounds of lateness, relating as it does to the requirements of admissibility of the claim, constitutes a procedural issue which may be raised by the court of its own motion at any stage and level of the proceedings, without the need for prior submission to the parties for adversarial debate.