The English Commercial Court dismissed a jurisdictional challenge under Section 67 of the Arbitration Act 1996 in LLC Agronefteprodukt v Ameropa AG [2021] EWHC 3473 (Comm) and held that a single Notice of Arbitration validly commenced an arbitration where there were two contracts, each containing a separate arbitration agreement. Background LLC Agronefteprodukt (the “Sellers”) agreed to sell […]
English Court Upholds Arbitration Award of Third-Party Funding Costs
In a decision dated 7 December 2021 in Tenke Fungurume Mining S.A. v Katanga Contracting Services S.A.S. [2021] EWHC 3301 (Comm) (“Tenke v. Katanga”), concerning a challenge under Section 68 of the 1996 Arbitration Act (the “Arbitration Act”) for serious irregularity, the English High Court upheld a 2021 London-seated, ICC arbitration Final Award, in which Tenke […]
Approach to Determining Law of the Arbitration Agreement Further Confirmed by UK Supreme Court
In Enka Insaat Ve Sanayi AS v OOO Insurance Company Chubb, the question of which law governed the validity and scope of an arbitration agreement arose before any arbitration had taken place. Then, in the UK Supreme Court judgment of Kabab-Ji SAL (Lebanon) v Kout Food Group (Kuwait) given on 17 October 2021, a similar […]
Dismissing Stale Claims for Want of Prosecution in International Arbitration
Under English law, if a claimant unreasonably delays the prosecution of its claims, the arbitral tribunal has discretion to dismiss them for “want of prosecution” (or to take less drastic measures to “penalize” the claimant, for instance, in terms of costs, interest or the conduct of the proceedings). Yet, it will normally not do so, […]
Demurrage Claims in International Arbitration
International arbitrations in the field of shipping and sales often include demurrage claims (“surestaries” in French) which constitute, using the expression of Professor Debattista, “the staple diet of shipping lawyers the world over”.[1] Although it is rarely defined in charterparties or sale contracts which usually provide for its rate only, the Baltic Code (2020) defines […]