- Last year saw a number of decisions illustrating the limited circumstances in which the English courts will intervene in Arbitration Act 1996 cases.
In November 2022, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from the decision of Mr Justice Jacobs who had held that an arbitrator had wrongly decided that he had jurisdiction (DHL Project & Chartering Ltd v Gemini Ocean Shipping Co. Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1555, [2022] All ER (D) 77 (Nov)).
Charterers informed the owners of a vessel that it was not required, and a claim for approximately $US280,000 was brought by the owners alleging breach of a binding contract which contained a London arbitration clause. The charterparty contained a provision (known as a recap) which stated ‘subject/receivers approval’.
The Court of Appeal held that upon a proper construction, a binding contract would only come into existence where the ‘subjects’ (essentially conditions precedent) had been fulfilled, which had never happened. Accordingly, the separability principle (concerning whether an arbitration clause was itself valid and binding)
