ARBITRATION

(i) Any jurisdiction or arbitration clause in an international commercial contract should be construed liberally. The words “arising under the contract” should cover every dispute except a dispute about whether there was ever a contract at all. Although in the past such words have sometimes been given a narrower meaning, that should no longer continue to be so.

(ii) An allegation of invalidity of a contract does not prevent the invalidity question being determined by an arbitration tribunal pursuant to the arbitration agreement. It is only if the arbitration agreement itself is directly impeached for some specific reason that the tribunal would be prevented from deciding the disputes that relate to the main contract.