Arbitration Law Monthly

It is settled law in England that a person seeking to rely upon an insurance policy to which he is not a party is nevertheless bound by the terms of the policy, including any arbitration clause. The point has arisen in an unusual context in Hong Kong, in AIG Insurance Hong Kong Ltd v McCullogh and Another [2019] HKCFI 1649. English principles were there applied. The decision was handed down by Sir William Blair, retired Commercial Court judge and sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge of the Hong Kong Court of First Instance.

In Hiscox Dedicated Corporate Member Ltd as Representative of Syndicate 33 at Lloyd’s v Weyerhaeuser Co [2019] EWHC 2671 (Comm) Robin Knowles J has confirmed that: (1) an arbitration clause in one contract may be incorporated into another contract if appropriate words of incorporation are used even if there is no express reference to the arbitration clause; and (2) in the case of a conflict between an arbitration clause and a service of suit or jurisdiction clause, the arbitration clause will be given priority and the other will be treated as referring to enforcement only.

Process & Industrial Developments Ltd v The Federal Republic of Nigeria [2019] EWHC 2241 (Comm), a decision of Butcher J, discusses a number of points relating to the seat of the arbitration, emphasising the distinction between the juridical seat and the place where hearings are held and also the jurisdiction of a tribunal to rule on the seat.

The Hong Kong High Court in Giorgio Armani SpA v Elan Clothes Co Ltd [2019] HKCFI 530 has reaffirmed its power to grant anti-suit relief where overseas proceedings have been brought in contravention of an arbitration clause. The case is discussed by Edward Liu, Legal Director, and Geoffrey Lai, Associate, of Hill Dickinson Hong Kong.

This article summarises the most significant and influential arbitration cases heard before the courts of Hong Kong during 2019. It also addresses the implementation of the Arrangement Concerning Mutual Assistance in Court-ordered Interim Measures in Aid of Arbitral Proceedings by the Courts of the Mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region since October 2019. This analysis is written by Edward Liu, Maggie Lee and Nicole Wong of Hill Dickinson Hong Kong.

The thorny question of exactly when an arbitration clause may be regarded as having been incorporated into a contract was raised before Veronique Buehrlen QC in MPB v LGK [2020] EWHC 90 (TCC). The case involved incorporation of standard terms and conditions, and thus did not involve the special rules of construction required for incorporation from one contract into another.