Arbitration Law Monthly

PT Transportasi Gas Indonesia v Conocophillips (Grissik) Ltd and Another [2016] EWHC 2834 (Comm) involved an attempt by the claimant to overturn an award for serious irregularity on a number of the grounds listed in section 68 of the Arbitration Act 1996. As with many such challenges, the court took the view that there was little more than an attempt to rerun arguments that had failed in the arbitration.

In BCY v BCZ [2016] SGHC 249 the question before Steven Chong J in the High Court of Singapore was whether the parties had entered into an arbitration agreement independently of negotiations for a sale and purchase agreement to which the arbitration provisions were intended to relate.

In Aline Tramp SA v Jordan International Insurance Co (The Flag Evi) [2016] EWHC 1317 (Comm) Sara Cockerill QC, sitting as Deputy High Court Judge, considered the difficult question of whether the English courts should grant an anti-suit injunction to prevent a party to an arbitration clause from proceeding in the courts of another country where legislation existed in that country expressly conferring jurisdiction on its courts.

The decision of Mimmie Chan J in the Hong Kong Court of First Instance, in Arjowiggins HKK2 Ltd v X Co [2016] HKCFI 1901, considers a number of important issues on the invalidity of an award and challenges to the jurisdiction of the tribunal. The case was decided under the Hong Kong Arbitration Ordinance, but it does not differ in any material particular from the English Arbitration Act 1996 for the purposes of the issues raised. The case is discussed by Edward Yang Liu, Senior Associate, Reed Smith Richards Butler.