2.1 Applications to the court in respect of disputes arising from arbitration are governed by Parts 58 to 60 and 62 of the Civil Procedure Rules, as supplemented by Practice Direction 62. These provisions were added to the CPR by statutory instrument in 2002 and came into force on 25 March 2002.1 CPR Part 62 and Practice Direction 62 specifically concern arbitration claims. CPR Parts 58 to 60 (replacing earlier Practice Directions issued under CPR Part 49) set out the procedures applicable to proceedings in the Commercial Court (Part 58), Mercantile Courts (Part 59) and the Technology and Construction Court (Part 60): those procedures also govern arbitration claims in those courts,2 so it is necessary to read CPR Part 62 with Parts 58 to 60. The 2001 Rules replace, with some substantive modifications and linguistic clarifications, the provisions of Practice Direction 49G. In outline, the history of the rules governing arbitration claims is as follows. Prior to the passing of the Arbitration Act 1996, the rules were contained in Order 73 of the Rules of the Supreme Court. Following the 1996 Act, the Rules of the Supreme Court (Amendment No 2) Order 19963 replaced, with effect from 31 January 1997, Order 73 of the Rules of the Supreme Court with an entirely new version of that Order. A Practice Note explaining the new Order 73 was issued on 13 January 1997.4 Accompanying this change was a further modification, again effected by statutory instrument,5 conferring upon county courts elements of the jurisdiction over arbitration applications previously exercised exclusively by the High Court. The revised version of Order 73 made a number of important changes to the procedures for applications under the arbitration legislation, most importantly by replacing the previous system whereby different procedures were used for different applications by a unified procedure referred to as “applications relating to arbitration”. That procedure applied to all matters other than enforcement of arbitration awards. Order 73 was concerned mainly with applications to the court, and other provisions of the rules of the Supreme Court—eg, service of originating process and acknowledgment of service, service of documents, affidavits and proceedings in chambers—remain operative in so far as they did not conflict with Order 73. With effect from 26 April 1999, the date on which the Rules of the Supreme Court were replaced by the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 under the Woolf Reforms, RSC Ord 73 was replaced by CPR Part 49 and Practice Direction 49G. Practice Direction 49G re-enacted the amended version of RSC Ord 73 with modifications to take account of the replacement of the RSC by the CPR, although the substance of the revised version of RSC Ord 73 remained intact.