Serious irregularity: failure to deal with all issues

Section 68 of the Arbitration Act 1996 sets out the grounds upon which an award may be set aside for serious irregularity, in each case provided that there would be substantial injustice in allowing the award to stand. Many challenges to awards brought before the courts are notionally concerned with serious procedural irregularity, but at root the appellant is really objecting to factual findings and inferences to be drawn from them.

Primera Maritime (Hellas) Ltd and Others v Jiangsu Eastern Heavy Industries Co Ltd and Another [2013] EWHC 3066 (Comm) , a case coming before Flaux J, is another example of that very tendency, on this occasion the allegation being that the arbitrators had failed to deal with all of the issues put to them, in breach of section 68(2)(d) of the 1996 Act.