It would be difficult for anyone, other than a lawyer, to comprehend that after almost three centuries of slow maturation the English system of arbitral law should be confronted with any difficulty when dealing with nothing more complicated or involved than a dilatory claimant. Yet the reality is very different. Since 1979 this most unexceptional of questions has caused a very signal acceleration of the judicial pulse. It has ascended to the heady heights of the House of Lords on two occasions,1 almost in quick succession, and there is probably yet a further visitation in the offing.2 It has fueled an unconcealed difference between the House of Lords and the lower courts and put to the test the allegiance of the lower judges to the doctrine of binding precedent.3 In the course of the debate the jurisprudential basis of an arbitration agreement has been called into account, as also has the legal relation of the parties to such an agreement.

The storm has however been stilled by the more recent pronouncement of the House of Lords in The Hannah Blumenthal,4 and there has consequently been introduced into this facet of the law a sufficient degree of order to at least encourage an attempt at its proper statement. In this statement the emphasis will be on the law as it has emerged and not on the intricacies of its prior meanderings, nor on the individual analyses of particular judges during these early journeyings.5 In seeking a remedy the courts have navigated various courses. The inherent power of an arbitrator has been quizzed, as also has the inherent jurisdiction of the courts to supervise commercial arbitrations. There have been speculative adventures into the realms of repudiatory breach and the doctrine of contractual frustration; and on occasions the tossing ship has been laid to rest at the safe berth of contractual abandonment.