Arbitration Law Monthly

One of the grounds upon which enforcement of a foreign arbitration award made in a New York Convention country may be refused by the English courts is where the respondent was not given proper notice of the appointment of the arbitrator or of the arbitration proceedings or was otherwise unable to present his case.

Sabbagh v Khoury and Others [2017] EWCA Civ 1120 is a very lengthy decision of the Court of Appeal concerning the jurisdiction of the English court to join third parties outside England to proceedings against a defendant domiciled in England. The key issues arose under the Brussels Regulation, Council Regulation 44/2001/EC.

Knowles J in Stati v The Republic of Kazakhstan [2017] EWHC 1348 (Comm) was required to decide whether an application to enforce a foreign award under the New York Convention could be rejected on the grounds of public policy when the Swedish curial court had rejected a challenge to the award and a US enforcing court had refused to allow evidence of allegations of fraud in the arbitration.

In Fulham Football Club (1987) Ltd v Richards [2011] EWCA Civ 855 the Court of Appeal decided that disputes arising under shareholder agreements can be referred to arbitration even though there is a statutory remedy for minority shareholder oppression in the Companies Act 2006. Singapore and Australia have taken a similar approach. The most recent decision is that of the New South Wales Supreme Court in Re Infinite Plus Pty Ltd [2017] NSWSC 470.