In the case of Sharp Corp Ltd v Viterra BV (formerly known as Glencore Agriculture BV [2024] UKSC 14, the UK Supreme Court has decided the proper measure of damages under the Grain and Feed Trade Association (“Gafta”) default clause and reaffirmed the interpretation of section 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996 (“AA 1996”). Whilst…
On 22 June 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion in the combined cases of Yegiazaryan v. Smagin et al. and CMB Monaco v. Smagin et al., Case Nos. 22-381 & 22-383 (U.S.). The case resolves divergent lower appellate rulings in the United States over whether a non-U.S. domiciliary may sustain a…
Swiss substantive law allows a debtor to pay a debt in the national currency of the place of payment even though the debt is actually owed in a foreign currency, except for cases where the contract expressly requires fulfillment of the debt in “actual currency” by using the term “actual” or words to that effect…
Independence and impartiality of an arbitrator are sine qua non in an arbitration proceeding. It is for this reason that jurisdictions, all across the globe, have taken significant measures to elaborate on the circumstances that may raise justifiable doubts as to the independence and impartiality of an arbitrator. However, one sphere remained untapped, until recently….
The issue of limitation period applicable to the enforcement of a foreign award in India has been a vexed question for a long time because of various conflicting and diametrically opposite decisions rendered by different High Courts in India. The issue has finally been settled recently by the Supreme Court of India on 16 September…
The impact of the pandemic on arbitration has been the subject of several posts on this Blog (see here and here). Rightly so, this is a seismic event in history that certainly has shaken the dispute resolution process, both state sponsored judiciaries as well as arbitration tribunals and practice generally. Entities which fall victim during…
In a recent decision of November 2019 the Austrian Supreme Court (“OGH” in German) considered whether an arbitral award rendered by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Belarus shall be declared enforceable and emphasized the importance of deliberations in the context of the ordre public standard to reach an enforceable award. In a nutshell,…
On 9 October 2019 the Supreme Court of Ukraine 1)This article refers to the Supreme Court created in the course of the judicial reform of 2016 in Ukraine. (Supreme Court) rendered a decision in a case on setting aside an arbitral award that goes completely against Article 3 of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International…
For a number of years, most Hungarian domain name disputes have been decided by an Alternative Dispute Resolution Forum (hereinafter: ‘Forum’) operated by the Council of Hungarian Internet Providers (‘Internet Szolgáltatók Tanácsa’, abbreviated as ‘ISZT’). Although the procedure conforms to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names…
[I]t is not merely of some importance but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.1) R v Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy [1924] 1 KB 256, 259 (Lord Hewart C.J.) If you sought to distil [the connection between ISDS’s transparency and…
The judicial review of arbitral awards has been a continuous topic of discussion amongst scholars and legislators. Considering the major effects of the seat of the arbitration in annulment proceedings, even when the arbitral award is in principle final and binding, local legislators are faced with the need to balance the aim of assuring the…
Coincidentally, at the same time last year, the world witnessed two historical developments. First, Donald J. Trump was elected as the 45th president of the United States. Second, in an attempt to curb black money (a move, the result of which is still to be evaluated), the Modi-led Government demonetised 500 and 1000 currency notes in India. Even…
The Indian arbitration regime has seen a sea change in the last couple of years. Before the decision of the Indian Supreme Court (“SC”) in BALCO v. Kaiser Aluminium [Civ. App. No. 7019 of 2005] in 2012, the Indian judiciary was considered highly interventionist in its approach to arbitration. The reason for this was a…
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…
With its decision of 27 March 2012, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court held unlawful a disciplinary sanction by which FIFA threatened the football player Matuzalem with a lifetime ban in case he failed to pay a damage claim of his former club and employer. By an earlier decision of the CAS, Francelino da Silva Matuzalem,…
Yograj Infrastructure Ltd. Vs. Ssang Yong Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. (on 1 September 2011) As reported in this blog, in May 2011 the Supreme Court of India (SCI) moderated the controversial principle it established in 2002 that allowed the Indian courts to intervene in arbitrations held outside of India unless that possibility was expressly…
In this post, we will first deal briefly with the facts in the case of Jivraj v Hashwani and the findings of the first instance judge and the Court of Appeal, which by now would be very familiar to anyone reading this blog. We will then look at the Supreme Court’s judgment ([2011] UKSC 40),…
In February 2011, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Stok & Associates, P.A., v. Citibank, N.A, (No. 10-514). The question presented was whether, under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), a party should be “required to demonstrate prejudice after the opposing party waived its contractual right to arbitrate by participating in litigation, in order…
This post addresses the U.S. Supreme Court’s misadventures with class arbitration over the past decade. Those misadventures have resulted in striking confusion and waste of resources by litigants, courts and arbitral institutions. More broadly, the Court’s conflicting and often ill-considered decisions on the subject now threaten to undermine U.S. arbitration law more generally – turning…
There was no shortage of coverage of the recent English Supreme Court case Jivraj v Hashwani, the case concerning whether an arbitration clause was contrary to anti-discrimination legislation applicable to employees. But there was one issue which received little attention before the Supreme Court – whether or not the nature of the relationship between the…
One of the key issues that now awaits the decision of the U.K. Supreme Court in Jivraj v. Hashwani is whether there is a contract between the parties and the arbitrators, such that the arbitrators may be considered “employees” of the parties (and thereby subject to the law prohibiting discrimination by employers)? If there is…
In a recent decision, the Swiss Supreme Court examined whether contractual provisions contemplating certain procedural steps before initiating arbitration proceedings impacted the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal (Case no. 4A_46/2011 of 16 May 2011, to be published in ASA Bulletin, 2011. English translation to be published in Swiss International Arbitration Law Reports, 2011). The contract,…
The UK Supreme Court released its judgment today in a much-written about dispute pitting a Saudi company against the Government of Pakistan. In the judgment, the Court declined to enforce a 2006 ICC arbitral award in favour of Dallah Real Estate and Tourism Holding Company. A central issue in the case was whether the Government…
