Serious irregularity: disregard of evidence

Pulis v Crystal Palace Football Club [2016] EWHC 2999 (Comm) appears to be yet another case where the serious irregularity challenges set out in section 68(2) of the Arbitration Act 1996 were invoked in an attempt to rerun the arbitration in court. The challenges were based on failure by the arbitrators to set out detailed reasons in their award for dismissing the claimant’s arguments, leading to allegations of unfairness in the procedure (section 68(2)(a)) and failure to determine all of the issues put to them (section 68(2)(d)).

Sir Michael Burton saw nothing in the claimant’s arguments, again confirming that section 68 is to be used in exceptional circumstances only, that awards are not required to deal with every point in detail and that even if there is a breach then there is no remedy if the breach did not affect the ultimate outcome.