Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

English Commercial Court sets out principles on court supervision of expert determination; declines pre-emptive guidance to referee in Premier Oil v Shell

Published on: 26 February 2024

Published by a LexisNexis Dispute Resolution expert

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Facts

[2023] EWHC 3269 (Comm) The dispute stemmed from two crude oil sale and purchase agreements between the applicant, Premier, as seller, and the defendant, Shell, as buyer (the Contracts). Each contained a comprehensive and, for relevant purposes, identical pricing formula under which the price was to be determined, among other matters, by reference to “the average of the high and low daily quotations for Urals Rotterdam versus Med Dated Brent Strip as published in Platts (AAGXJ00)” (the Urals Assessment). The Contracts also stipulated that, if Platts implemented a material modification to the heading or contents of assessments relied upon in the pricing structure (including the Urals Assessment), the parties would agree an alternative pricing source. If they failed to reach agreement, a referee would be appointed to select the alternative source. Following the imposition of European sanctions on Russia, Platts made a material change to the methodology used to determine the Urals Assessment. The parties could not agree a substitute source of pricing information and therefore agreed that a referee should be instructed. They further agreed that the scope of the referee’s powers should be...

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