CORDOBA HOLDINGS LTD V BALLYMORE PROPERTIES LTD

[2011] EWHC 1636 (Ch), Chancery Division, The Chancellor, 30 June 2011

Arbitration - Challenge to award - Error of law - Failure to deal with all issues - Arbitration Act 1996, sections 68 and 69

Following a rent review arbitration, the arbitrator made awards in which he held that a clause which required tenant's improvements to be disregarded applied only to the demised premises and not outside those premises (in this case, an enhanced power supply), so that he had implicitly accepted the landlord's submissions. The tenant asserted that there was an error of law under section 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996 and also a serious irregularity under section 68(2)(d) of the 1996 Act in that the arbitrator had failed expressly to deal with the issue put to him. The court rejected both heads of challenge. The issue was never actually put to the arbitrator, so that if there was an error of law it did not arise out of factual findings (required by section 69(3)(c)) and it could not have affected the rights of the parties as it was purely hypothetical. For the same reasons there was no breach of section 68(2)(d).