Arbitration

A stay should be granted pursuant to s 9 of the Arbitration Act 1996 if the proceedings were “in respect of a matter which under the [arbitration] agreement is to be referred to arbitration”. In considering how that question was to be determined, the court should consider the substance of the controversy as it appeared from the circumstances in evidence on the application (and not just the particular terms in which the claimant had sought to formulate its claim in court).

It was also clear law that the construction of an arbitration agreement should start from the assumption that the parties, as rational business people, had been likely to have intended any dispute arising out of the relationship into which they had entered or purported to enter to be decided by the same tribunal. However, where there were multiple related agreements, the task of the court in determining whether a dispute fell within the jurisdiction clauses of