An arbitration agreement is an agreement to resolve disputes through arbitration. Its existence precludes disputing parties from bringing their dispute to court: see Article 3 of the Arbitration and ADR Law of the Republic of Indonesia (“Arbitration Law”), which stipulates that Indonesian courts have no jurisdiction to try disputes between parties bound by an arbitration…

While the second wave of Covid-19 hit India harder in 2021 than in 2020, this did not hamper progression in the legal sphere. 2021 saw several notable arbitration-related developments including another amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“Indian Arbitration Act”). Following on the tradition of the “2020 in Review: India” and “2019 in…

Almost a decade after the Dallah saga, the French and English courts are once again considering the enforcement of the same award yet reaching conflicting solutions. On 29 March 2019, the High Court of England and Wales, followed on 20 January 2020 by the England and Wales Court of Appeal both refused to enforce an…

The Ruta del Sol arbitral award was one of the most important awards in 2019 in Colombia and possibly in the entire region. The arbitral tribunal sitting to resolve the Ruta del Sol arbitral proceeding (the “Tribunal”) determined the consequences of securing an infrastructure concession contract in Colombia through corrupt practices and served as pioneers…

Introduction It is not uncommon for a party (or an alleged party) to an arbitration agreement to apply to the local courts for an injunction to restrain the arbitral proceedings. Such an anti-arbitration injunction is usually applied for on the grounds that the applicant is not in fact a party to the arbitration agreement and…

Introduction In a previous post, I had surmised whether the Indian courts’ tryst with the group of companies doctrine (“Doctrine”) in the arbitration context is a harbinger or aberration. If the Indian Supreme Court (“SC”) decisions in Reckitt Benckiser v. Reynders Label Printing, decided on 1 July 2019 (“Reynders Label”), and MTNL v. Canara Bank, decided on 8…

In June 2018, the long awaited UAE Federal Arbitration Law (Law No. 6 of 2018) entered into force, repealing the arbitration specific provisions (“UAE Arbitration Chapter”) contained in the UAE Civil Procedure Code (Law No. 11 of 1992). Whilst it is fair to say that the new UAE Federal Arbitration Law failed overall to meet…

In December 2017 South Africa brought into law its first piece of legislation dedicated to international arbitration, the aptly named International Arbitration Act of 2017 (the New Act).   The New Act The New Act incorporates the provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law and further aligns the country’s national law with the New York Convention….

On 5 November 2014, the French Cour de Cassation, overruled a decision of the Paris Court of Appeal for having reversed the burden of proof in a case involving a non-participating party. With this victory before the French Supreme Court, Yukos Capital (“Yukos”) is one step closer to the enforcement of an arbitral award against…

and Katherine Bell, Schellenberg Wittmer In 2014, the Swiss Supreme Court rendered 32 decisions on petitions to set aside international arbitral awards. Consistent with a traditionally low success rate, the Supreme Court granted only 4 of the 32 petitions. One of these four petitions was considered in a French-language decision dated 7 April 2014 (Decision…

1. I have written elsewhere about the extension of the arbitration clause to non-signatories in situations that have been identified as the doctrines of the “group of companies” and the assumption of debts.1)”The extension of arbitration agreements: a ‘glimpse’ of connectivity?” 32(1) ASA Bull. 18 (2014). In that particular case, the circumstances of the facts…

In April 2014, Tiulei Hagalil and Klal Teufa, two Israeli companies providing tourism and flight services, commenced an action against Royal Jordanian Airlines and two other respondents in the Israeli District Court for monetary and declaratory relief (Tiulei Hagalil Transport (1987) Ltd. and others v. Royal Jordanian Airlines and others, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa District Court, 56420-03-14, 15…

In the recent case of OMV Petrom SA v Glencore International AG [2014] EWHC 242 (Comm) (07 February 2014) (“Petrom v Glencore”), the English Commercial Court was faced with the question of whether issues arising and decided in an arbitration should be treated as settled in subsequent court proceedings brought by a non-party to the…

In the recent decision of the Tel-Aviv District Court in S. Elia Holdings Ltd. and Arie Shasha v. Ron Itzhaky, the plaintiffs were effectively estopped from bringing claims against a non-signatory under a contract containing an arbitration clause. The plaintiffs in the case are a private Israeli company engaged in real-estate entrepreneurship (“Elia Holdings”) and…

and Benjamin Ainsley Gill When seeking to extend an arbitration clause to a third party who is not a signatory to the clause, common law practitioners will often have resort to an argument that the corporate veil should be pierced – in other words, that the court or tribunal should disregard the separate legal identity…