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They do not need to. The clause has not moved. The seat is the same. The counterparty has not raised a concern.

What has changed is the legal ground beneath it.

The UAE has entered the world's top five arbitration seats. Dubai Court of Cassation Decision 657 of 2025 has confirmed that onshore UAE-seated arbitral tribunals hold exclusive authority over the interim measures they issue, and that the procedural tactic most commonly deployed to frustrate mainland arbitration has been cut off.

For British businesses and UK investors with onshore UAE contractual exposure, the seat clause in an existing agreement now carries enforcement consequences that were never priced into the original deal.

The clause is the same. Its legal weight is not.

What Decision 657 of 2025 Actually Establishes

There was a specific tactic this ruling eliminates. Understanding it matters.

Under the previous position, a counterparty facing an unfavourable arbitral tribunal could take that tribunal's interim order to the Dubai Court of Appeal and seek to have it annulled. The argument was constitutional: that being bound by an injunction from a private tribunal violated their right to access local UAE justice.

This was not a theoretical risk. It was a documented delay mechanism that extended proceedings, drove up costs, and drained the practical value of interim relief for the party that had already won it.

Decision 657 of 2025 ends that.

The Court of Cassation confirmed that under Article 21 of Federal Arbitration Law No. 6 of 2018, the tribunal alone holds the authority to modify, suspend, or revoke its own interim measures. Once arbitration is active, onshore UAE courts have no jurisdiction to interfere. A counterparty can no longer use the domestic court system as a delay instrument once a tribunal has issued its order.

One critical distinction: this ruling applies to mainland UAE arbitration only. The DIFC and ADGM operate under independent frameworks and are not governed by Federal Law No. 6 of 2018. If your clause designates either of those seats, the application of this ruling is different. That is a distinction many standard contracts still fail to draw clearly.

What This Changes for Contracts Signed Before 2025

If your onshore UAE agreement predates this ruling, it was negotiated in an environment where interim measures were genuinely contestable in local courts. That reality shaped how clauses were written, how risk was priced, and what leverage each side believed they held.

Three things have shifted.

Clause language drafted before 2025 often does not reflect the tribunal's now-confirmed exclusive authority over its own orders. That gap does not surface in a stable relationship. It surfaces the moment a dispute goes live.

The ability to stall arbitral proceedings by running to a local court was, for many UAE-based counterparties, a genuine negotiating lever. It has been removed. Parties who built their dispute strategy around that lever are now working with a contract that no longer delivers what they assumed.

British parties renegotiating through 2026 should also know that locally advised counterparties are already drafting around this decision. If your team is not, that asymmetry has a cost before a single claim is filed.

What to Do Now

Audit every onshore UAE-seated arbitration clause in your active agreements, particularly those executed before 2025. Confirm the seat is specified precisely and that interim relief provisions reflect the current legal position under Federal Law No. 6 of 2018.

For mainland UAE contracts being extended or renegotiated through 2026, the time to close drafting gaps is now, not when a counterparty is already in default. The distance between what your clause says and what it means today is a commercial exposure, not a procedural footnote.

For new agreements with UAE nexus, the choice between an onshore, DIFC, or ADGM seat now carries consequences significant enough to warrant specific advice. Carrying forward language from the last contract is not a neutral decision.

Conclusion

Decision 657 of 2025 is not a development to note and defer.

It is operative law. It has already changed what interim relief is worth in onshore UAE proceedings and stripped the most effective delay tool from the party that used to hold it.

British businesses with mainland UAE contracts that have not been reviewed in light of this ruling are carrying exposure they have not measured. The prudent step is to find out exactly what that exposure looks like before a counterparty does it for them.

Author: Ammara Kazmi, Managing Partner, AKAZIM Advocates & Legal Consultants