UK 115

UK No. 115, Carpatsky Petroleum Corporation v. PJSC Ukrnafta, High Court of Justice, Commercial Court, Case No. CL-2016-000547, 31 March 2020

The High Court dismissed the application to set aside an order granting enforcement of an SCC award. The Court found that the agreement for SCC arbitration in the contract between the parties was valid under the law of Sweden, which was the law applicable to determine the issue of the agreement’s validity because the choice of a neutral forum was a strong indication of an implied choice for Swedish law in this respect. The choice of Sweden as the seat of the arbitration also gave rise to a reasonable inference that the parties knew they were agreeing to the application of the Swedish Arbitration Act, which stated that if the parties did not agree on the law applicable to the arbitration agreement, that law was the law of the place of arbitration; this choice also made Swedish law the law with the closest connection to the arbitration. The Court also held that prior court decisions, in Ukraine and Sweden, did not give rise to issue estoppel on the question of the validity of the arbitration agreement, because there was no identity of subject matter in the actions. Further, the defendant was estopped from arguing that it had been deprived of the right to due process in the arbitration, because the curial court of Sweden had already rejected this contention.

Yearbook
Yearbook Commercial Arbitration, S. W. Schill (ed.), Vol. XLV (2020)

Country
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Original full text
Full text decision UK 115

Excerpt
Excerpt decision UK 115

Topics in UK 115
¶500 » Grounds for refusal of enforcement in general
¶501 » Grounds are exhaustive
¶506 » Law applicable to the arbitration agreement
¶507 » Miscellaneous cases regarding the arbitration agreement
¶511 » “Otherwise unable to present his case”

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