Legal News

What are the practical implications of this case? This case underscores the Swiss courts’ hesitation to compel non-signatories to arbitrate, particularly where the proposed extension rests purely on their behaviour. According to current jurisprudence, an arbitration clause can capture non-signatories if, for instance, their conduct reveals a clear intention to be bound by it (see, eg 4A_528/2019). In this dispute, however, both the tribunal and the court discerned no such intention. Nor did the record reveal conduct that might reasonably be read as tacit assent to the arbitration clause by C. While the non-signatory invoked rights arising under the shareholders’ agreement, it pursued them solely before a Latvian court. The court refused to accept that issuing proceedings in a court evidences an intention to arbitrate. On comparable facts, courts in common law systems might have relied on equitable estoppel, a doctrine that prevents a...

Sapura Fabrication Sdn Bhd & Others v GAS [2025] SGCA 13 What are the practical implications of this case? Lawyers acting for a prospective arbitration claimant against a company shielded by a moratorium should understand that a carve‑out is not automatic. A carve‑out is not granted as a matter of routine; the onus is on the applicant to persuade the court to exercise its discretion to allow one. In practical terms, leave will be considered only where the following factors are established: Speed: the application is made promptly; Appropriateness: the dispute must, or is better, resolved by arbitration rather than through proof‑of‑debt adjudication; No prejudice: other creditors and the restructuring will not be adversely affected; and No floodgates: permission will not unleash an avalanche of litigation. Prospects may further improve if the applicant proposes submitting the dispute under the SIAC...

In this issue: Arbitration in England & Wales International Arbitration Institutional and ad hoc arbitration Other arbitration and ADR-related news and developments Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Useful information Arbitration in England & Wales Challenge to jurisdiction resulting from a carve out in a statutory arbitration clause The New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 ( NRSWA 1991) sets out a framework for resolving disputes arising from street works claims. Under section 96(3), where any provision in this Part gives a person, in defined circumstances, a right to recover costs or expenses incurred in carrying out works or other steps or measures, any dispute about whether those circumstances exist, or about the amount recoverable, must be determined by arbitration. This holds whether the provision is framed as a right of recovery, or as imposing a...

Tyson International Company Ltd v GIC RE, India Corporate Member Ltd (sued as the sole corporate member for Syndicate 1947 at Lloyd’s of London for the 2021 and 2022 years of account) [2025] EWHC 367 ( Comm) What are the practical implications of this case? There are no certainties in litigation. Even when two Commercial Court judges have issued rulings tending towards the grant of permission to appeal, advisers should still proceed carefully in seeking it. Although the threshold may look modest—‘a realistic, as opposed to a fanciful, prospect of success’—and the points of contractual construction were sufficiently arguable that an earlier High Court judge ( Mr Hancock KC) indicated he would allow permission, the landscape of the proceedings had shifted. Intervening developments, including a judgment of the Court of Appeal, led Mr Cooper KC to determine that GIC did not enjoy a...

What are the practical implications of this case? This decision offers a welcome confirmation that the legal tests for granting security for costs to a defendant under Order 23 rule 1 RHC apply equally to a bid to set aside an arbitral award under section 81(1) AO, as recognised in P1 v D ( Arbitration: Security for Costs) [2024] 5 HKLRD 699 (not reported by Lexis Nexis®UK). That equivalence underscores the Hong Kong Courts’ endorsement of arbitration, ensuring challenges to awards are not advanced lightly. The reasoning serves as a recap of the principles distilled in Hong Kong Court authorities. Those authorities emphasise that the court enjoys an unfettered discretion to direct security for costs which, as Mimmie Chan J did, must be evaluated by reference to all the circumstances of the case and by employing a broad brush approach to costs. As...

India Glycols Ltd and others v Texan Minerals and Chemicals LLC [2025] SGHC 28 What are the practical implications of this case? This judgment stands as an uncommon instance of an arbitral tribunal overstepping its mandate when issuing its decision. It explains the different materials a court consults to delineate the scope of the parties’ submission to arbitration—such as pleadings, the agreed list of issues, opening statements, the evidence adduced and closing submissions—and also distils the framework for assessing whether the tribunal has exceeded its jurisdiction. The decision reiterates that a tribunal’s jurisdiction reaches only as far as the matters the parties have actually referred to arbitration. Where multiple claims, founded on distinct bases, are advanced against separate respondents, parties must keep precise track of which respondent each claim targets. In that vein, practitioners should take particular care to keep claims properly...

Cadent Gas Ltd v City Fibre Ltd [2025] EWHC 910 ( Comm) What are the practical implications of this case? The ruling means a significant volume of low-value street work claims must be decided by the county courts, rather than by arbitrators with specialist familiarity with such claims. The judge arrived at this conclusion with some reluctance and, recognising the need for an effective route for resolving this category of claim, granted permission to appeal. He observed that the mean period for small claims in London and the South East to reach trial is now 67 weeks, a point he expressly noted in his judgment as context......

Telecom Business Solution, Llc v Terra Towers Corp No. 22-1761, SD NY, 2025 US Dist US Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York has imposed coercive sanctions: US$10,000 per day to begin against certain parties in May 2025, and US$20,000 per day against other parties starting in June 2025, with each fine set to double every fourteen days until the contempt is cured. Telecoms dispute The dispute centres on a shareholders agreement ( SHA) binding the shareholders and investors in Continental Towers LATAM Holdings Ltd, a telecommunications infrastructure company that owns and operates telecommunication towers and related assets across Latin America. The minority investors are Telecom Business Solution Llc and LATAM Towers Llc—both Delaware entities backed and financed by Peppertree Capital Management—and AMLQ Holdings ( Cay) Ltd, a Cayman Islands entity funded by Goldman Sachs & Co Llc...

The High Court handed down a 40-page judgment on 17 April 2025, stating that India had not relinquished its right to invoke sovereign immunity in answer to proceedings brought to enforce an arbitration award. Judge William Blair concluded that, by virtue only of its ratification of the New York Convention 1958 ( NYC), the Republic of India had not submitted to the court’s jurisdiction; put another way, India’s ratification of the NYC does not, in itself and in the absence of a valid arbitration agreement, constitute consent via a prior written agreement by the state to waive its immunity......

Arbitration and oppression claims under Cayman Law ( PI 1 & PI 2 v MR) PI 1 & PI 2 v MR [2025] HKCFI 1110 What are the practical implications of this case? This judgment supplies practical direction for resolving shareholder conflicts by arbitration where Cayman-incorporated companies have Hong Kong ties. It confirms that arbitral tribunals may determine factual complaints of oppression, discriminatory behaviour, or a loss of confidence in governance, even if the claimant subsequently seeks relief from the Cayman court. Arbitrability addresses whether the subject matter can be determined by arbitration at all. If the tribunal is asked to assess breaches of shareholder agreements or factual misconduct, the dispute remains arbitrable. Only statutory remedies under the Cayman Companies Act—such as a winding-up order or a buyout—are reserved to the court’s jurisdiction. Scope concerns whether the arbitration clause embraces the claims. Where the...

By refusing to grant certiorari on appraiser Juan Cartaya’s petition, the Supreme Court has, for now, declined to clarify whether a loss-appraisal procedure—like the one in Travelers Indemnity Co’s commercial property policy—amounts to “arbitration” under the FAA. Pointing out that every federal circuit court recognises arbitral immunity, which affords arbitrators judge-like immunity protections, Cartaya maintained he should have been insulated from the jury’s roughly US$600,000 fraud verdict in favour of Travelers, as his appraiser role was, in substance, that of an arbitrator. He also pressed the Court to decide, definitively, which body of law—state or federal—defines what counts as FAA arbitration. In October 2023, a three-judge appellate panel affirmed the trial court’s entry of the fraud award, plus litigation expenses, to Travelers, on appeal. In an unpublished decision, it ultimately concluded the policy’s appraisal scheme was not arbitration because it provides no route to...

In cross-border settings, the difficulty of enforcing foreign court judgments often drives international parties and practitioners to opt for international arbitration. With shifting tariff regimes and increasingly strained relations between the US and key trading partners, arbitration is poised to play an even larger part in resolving disputes. To clarify how awards are enforced, this article outlines the enforcement pathway so that those involved in cross-border disputes can plan ahead. It highlights three principal jurisdictions: the US, the People’s Republic of China, and Mexico... Arbitral awards are generally easier to enforce due to a strong framework of multilateral treaties that support their recognition and enforcement. The best known is the 1958 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, the New York Convention, with many subsequent instruments following its example. By contrast, enforcing a foreign judgment is far more...

What are the practical implications of this case? In DJP and others v DJO [2025] SGCA( I) 2, the decision underscores the need for arbitrators to exercise genuinely independent judgment. Independence means freedom not only from the parties, but also from influence arising out of other contemporaneous matters. Where parallel arbitrations share a common factual setting, there can be a temptation to replicate sections of reasoning; nonetheless, tribunals must show they have engaged with the precise submissions in the case before them and that their conclusions were not shaped by arguments ventilated in related proceedings with similar themes. For practitioners, the Court of Appeal offered notable guidance on: the distinctions between arbitration and litigation; and the content of the ‘apparent bias’ rule. It also reaffirmed that review of an arbitral award is not a supervisory process but one concerned with the integrity of the process, unlike an...

JSC DTEK Krymenergo v The Russian Federation No. 23-3330 United States District Court for the District of Columbia Crimean investment JSC DTEK Krymenergo, part of the DTEK Energy Group of Ukraine, operated the electricity network in Crimea and held a range of local assets. These comprised: Valuable equipment and moveable property Intangible rights, including licences and contractual entitlements Cash holdings and securities Although Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Krymenergo retained ownership until 21 January 2015, when Russia reassigned the property to Crimea and took possession of the company’s office premises. In February 2018, Krymenergo initiated arbitration for alleged breaches of the Russia– Ukraine bilateral investment treaty ( BIT) before a PCA tribunal chaired by Professor Juan Fernández- Armesto, with J. William Rowley KC appointed by Krymenergo and Professor Vladimir Pavić appointed by Russia. On 1 November 2023, the tribunal...

In this issue: Arbitration in England & Wales International Arbitration Investment treaty arbitration Institutional and ad hoc arbitration Other arbitration and ADR-related news and developments Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Useful information No Weekly Highlights on 24 April 2025 Arbitration in England & Wales Arbitration clauses and third parties: limits of protection In Renaissance Securities v ILLC Chlodwig Enterprises [2025] EWCA Civ 369, the Court of Appeal refused an appeal for an anti-suit injunction ( ASI) to halt Russian claims pursued against the appellant’s affiliates. Although parts of the dispute arose under contracts governed by English law with LCIA arbitration seated in London, the court concluded those promises to arbitrate did not bind non-party affiliates. It also dismissed the contention that the clauses carried an implied negative pledge preventing related litigation elsewhere. Moreover, while recognising the Russian action might be vexatious and/or aimed at sidestepping the arbitration provisions and relevant...

Clarke Energy ( Australia) Pty Ltd v Power Generation Corporation & Holt [2025] QSC 64. What are the practical implications of this case? Four practical implications follow from the judgment. Courts are expected to keep a stringent threshold for claims that a lack of procedural fairness renders an award contrary to public policy. A raft of authorities from Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and the UK have declined to set aside awards on that basis. Only genuine unfairness or tangible practical injustice that negates rights our legal system recognises as fundamental—and therefore engages public policy—will warrant intervention. Parties wishing to rely on factual matters or points of law must ventilate them sufficiently early in the arbitration so the other side and the tribunal are on notice and able to address them. ......

Renaissance Securities ( Cyprus) Ltd v ILLC Chlodwig Enterprises and others [2025] EWCA Civ 369 What are the practical implications of this case? This decision is important for practitioners engaged in international arbitration, cross-border litigation, and sanctions compliance. It underlines the obstacles to extending arbitration clauses to group companies and the strict criteria for securing anti-suit injunctions ( ASIs) in the English courts: The Court of Appeal confirmed that arbitration agreements will not be stretched to cover affiliates or other non-parties without clear, express terms. Contract drafters should be alive to this: if affiliates are to be compelled to arbitrate, or allowed to take the benefit of such clauses, that must be spelt out expressly (where possible). Boilerplate wording is unlikely to shield affiliates from overseas litigation exposure The judgment demonstrates the demanding threshold for ASIs, especially where the case rests on...

White & Case, working alongside the School of International Arbitration at Queen Mary University of London, engaged with 2,400 individuals active in international arbitration for its sixth International Arbitration Survey, with a summary released on 9 April 2025. Approximately 47% of participants were based in the Asia- Pacific, while 21% principally operated in Europe. Contributors from North America, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa took part as well. The findings show 90% anticipate AI will be deployed for research, data analytics and document review in international arbitration matters. The main impetus is time savings, cited by 54% of respondents; lowering costs and reducing human error also ranked highly, as additional priorities highlighted by respondents across all participating regions surveyed......

In an order dated 10 April 2025, US District Judge P Kevin Castel found Madison Pacific Trust had persuasively demonstrated the need for judicial involvement, as the corporate trustee services provider had exhaustively pursued other methods to serve process on Sergiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko, founders of the Ukrainian grain-exporting conglomerate GNT Group. He observed that the arbitration against Groza and Naumenko ended in January with a final US$149m award in Madison’s favour. He added that the corporate trustee services provider commenced proceedings in the High Court of Justice, Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, Commercial Court, where the GNT Group founders were at first represented by Swiss firm Fortior Law SA. However, in March 2024, Groza and Naumenko informed the High Court that they would act in person, according to Judge Castel’s order. Even after Fortior ceased to act, the...

ELA USA, Inc v The Republic of Estonia 2018-42 PCA The tribunal’s award was sent to the parties on 21 February 2025. Its online release was publicised on 30 March 2025 in a press statement issued by claimant ELA USA Inc. The tribunal was made up of Judge Bruno Simma as presiding arbitrator, Professor Hélène Ruiz Fabri, nominated by ELA, and Judge Peter Tomka, nominated by Estonia. Seaport investment From around 1996, ELA, a commodities trading enterprise, began investing in a seaport in Tallinn, Estonia, known locally as Lennusadam, via four partly indirect subsidiaries. Having used other Estonian ports for its trading, ELA considered it could grow by obtaining a port of its own. In 1997, it concluded two 20-year leases for the seaport’s use. Around that period, Estonia contended that the seaport had become state property after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in 1997...