In the matter of the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards pursuant to artt. 839-840 cod. proc. civ. and the New York Convention of 10 June 1958, the review by the court of the requested State is confined to the operative part of the award and does not extend to a re-examination of the merits of the dispute or to a verification of the correctness of the reasoning; any error of law committed by the arbitrators in the interpretation and application of the substantive rules does not constitute a ground for refusing recognition.
Public policy, as a limit to the recognition of foreign arbitral awards pursuant to art. V, paragraph 2, lett. b), of the New York Convention and art. 840, paragraph 3, n. 1, cod. proc. civ., is to be understood in a restrictive sense, as comprising only the fundamental principles and the mandatory rules of higher rank which inform the legal order at a given historical moment; refusal of recognition is justified only in the presence of a manifest and serious violation of an absolutely fundamental principle, a mere divergence between the solution adopted by the arbitrators and that which would have been reached in application of Italian law not being sufficient.
An order for the payment of a contractual penalty made by a foreign arbitral award in conformity with the law applicable to the contract is not contrary to Italian public policy merely because the amount of the penalty is greater than that which would have been determined under Italian law, given that the institution of punitive damages is not ontologically incompatible with the Italian legal order and that review on public policy grounds does not authorise a reassessment on the merits of the quantum of the award.