Fulham Football Club (1987) Ltd v Richards and another [2011] EWCA Civ 855, [2011] All ER (D) 197 (Jul)
There was no express provision in either the Arbitration Act 1996 or the Companies Act 2006 which excluded arbitration as a possible means of determining disputes regarding an allegation of unfair prejudice. The test under s 1(b) of the 1996 Act that parties should be free to agree how their disputes were resolved subject only to such safeguards as were necessary in the public interest was a demanding test. It was not necessary in the public interest that agreements to refer disputes about the internal management of a company should in general be prohibited, nor was there any reason why it was necessary to prohibit arbitration agreements to the extent that they, in particular, applied to disputes whether a company’s affairs were being or had been conducted in a manner that was unfairly prejudicial to the interests of its members. What the 1996 Act did was to give primacy to the arbitration agreement even in domestic disputes by making a stay of court proceedings relating to the same dispute
