Arbitration—Arbitration clause—Jurisdiction

Queen’s Bench Division, Commercial Court, Christopher Clarke J,
18 January 2010

General words of incorporation are capable of incorporating terms which include an arbitration clause without specifically referring to it.

Paul Key and Siddharth Dhar (instructed by Radcliffes Le Brasseur) for the claimant.

John Russell (instructed by Clyde & Co) for the respondent.
By a written contract the respondent Lebanese company agreed to sell a consignment of steel scrap to the claimant Turkish company. The contract contained a number of terms and then ended with the words “all the rest will be same as our previous contracts”.

Fourteen previous contracts had been concluded between the same parties. The first three were on the claimant’s letter heading and the subsequent 11 were either on a form drawn up by the respondent or its agent. The agent’s contracts, like the respondent’s, set out terms relating to material, quantity, price and shipment but unlike the respondent’s contract did not