Stay of arbitration proceedings: scope of arbitration clause

In Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency Ltd v Thermabead Ltd, 2019, unreported, Roger ter Haar QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, was faced with an arbitration clause contained in the rules of an association and designed to deal with disputes between members of the association and their customers. The question for the court was whether the clause applied also to disputes between the association and its members.

The difficulty was that there was no agreedarbitration procedure for the latter, and the arbitration procedure had altered over the years for disputes between members and customers. Despite these difficulties, the court was able to conclude that the parties had entered into a valid and binding arbitration agreement.