Arbitration

It was an established principle that it was not sufficient for an arbitral tribunal to deal with crucial issues in pectore, such that the parties were left to guess at whether a crucial issue had been dealt with or had been overlooked: the legislative purpose of s 68(2)(d) of the Arbitration Act 1996 (AA 1996) was to ensure that all the issues, the determination of which were crucial to the tribunal’s decision, were dealt with and that could only be achieved, in practice, if it was made apparent to the parties (normally from the award or reasons) that those crucial issues had indeed been determined. It was also settled law that the assertion that the arbitrator had failed to take any or proper consideration of the evidence could, in an exceptional case, give rise to a challenge under s 68 of AA 1996, based on the general duty of an arbitrator under s 33 of AA 1996 if, for example,