An action to set aside an arbitral award is subject to confined grounds of challenge: the challenging party must specifically identify the nullity grounds invoked among those exhaustively listed in art. 829 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a generic reference to arts. 827 and 829 of the Code of Civil Procedure without identification of the specific defects alleged being insufficient.
For the purposes of nullity of the award on grounds of contradictory provisions under art. 829, para. 1, no. 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the defect requires a logical irreconcilability between parts of the operative part, or between the operative part and the reasoning insofar as the latter constitutes a substantive ruling, and cannot be invoked to challenge the persuasiveness or correctness of the arbitrators’ reasoning in their assessment of the facts.
The assessment of the seriousness of non-performance for the purposes of termination of the contract constitutes a finding of fact reserved to the arbitrators; such assessment is not reviewable in proceedings to set aside the award for nullity, as it does not fall within any of the grounds of nullity exhaustively listed in art. 829 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
In the absence of an express provision in the arbitration clause extending the grounds for setting aside the award to violations of rules of law, art. 829, para. 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure applies, with the result that the award is not open to challenge for errors of law, and the arbitrators’ findings of fact are not reviewable save where the reasoning is entirely absent.