Arbitration Law Monthly

Did you know you can receive our email alerts to keep you fully informed of the latest developments brought to you by Arbitration Law Monthly? Make sure you are signed up and be the first to know about our new content.

Did you know you can receive our email alerts to keep you fully informed of the latest developments brought to you by Arbitration Law Monthly? Make sure you are signed up and be the first to know about our new content.

Did you know you can receive our email alerts to keep you fully informed of the latest developments brought to you by Arbitration Law Monthly? Make sure you are signed up and be the first to know about our new content.

In Lifestyle Equities CV and Another v Hornby Street (MCR) Ltd and Others [2022] EWCA Civ 51 the Court of Appeal addressed a novel question: what law is to be applied to determine whether a third party is bound by an arbitration clause? The majority view was that the relevant law is that governing the arbitration clause.

In Aquavita International SA v Indagro SA [2022] EWHC 892 (Comm) the question was whether an application to a foreign court for security should be restrained by anti-suit injunction on the basis that the remedy sought would be determinative of the issues in any future arbitration.

In Livian GmbH v Elekta Ltd and Another [2022] EWHC 757 (Comm) HHJ Pelling QC considered conflicting approaches in English cases to the question whether an award could be challenged for serious irregularity under section 68(2)(a) of the Arbitration Act 1996 where the tribunal’s award made no reference to particular evidence put forward to it. The court’s conclusion was that this was not a basis for sustaining an appeal against an award.

In CLX v CLY and Another [2022] SGHC 17 the Singapore High Court discussed the question whether a party to an arbitration who had relied upon the award to derive benefit from it was precluded by the approbation and reprobation principle from challenging the award. The court reviewed the English authorities on the point and the broad conclusion was that the bar applied to the successful party but not to the losing party. Thus, if the arbitrator rules that the buyer of goods is entitled to reject them on quality grounds, arrangements made by the seller to dispose of the goods do not preclude a challenge to the award.

The issue in LLC Agronefteprodukt v Ameropa AG [2021] EWHC 3474 (Comm) was the validity of an arbitration notice where there were two separate contracts containing arbitration clauses but the notice on one reading was framed in the singular. The decision shows the flexible approach of the English courts to the interpretation of such documents.