EACL does not have a general policy on best paper awards, imposed by the Board. It is essentially the job of the program committee chairs to decide whether to have best paper awards (and how many), and to implement a policy to determine how to pick a winner. EACL-12 did have an award. A 6-person committee chaired by Stephen Clark (at the request of the program chairs) made the decision, after being presented with a number of worthy papers suggested by the program chairs and members of the program committee.
Stephen Clark. October, 2013