18.1 Under the Arbitration Act 1950, statutory recognition was afforded to two types of award: final awards and interim awards. A final award disposed of all of the issues between the parties and was final and binding. A final award could be made at any time.1 An interim award did not, as its name suggests, operate as a provisional award pending further resolution of the issues, but rather amounted to a final award on specific severable issues, with remaining issues being left to other interim awards and the final award. The Arbitration Act 1950 thus provided that interim awards were to be treated in the same way as final awards.2 Two other forms of award were in use under the 1950 Act, although they were not statutorily recognised: consent awards, embodying any settlement reached between the parties during the arbitration proceedings; and draft awards, submitted to the parties for comment before being made final.