Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
THE LAW GOVERNING ARBITRATION AGREEMENTS: WHERE TO START?
Anthony Kennedy*
Enka v Chubb
How should a court charged with determining the proper law of an arbitration agreement contained within the parties’ main contract, where the parties have expressly chosen country A’s law to govern that main contract but country B as the seat of the arbitration, carry out its task? Prior to the Court of Appeal’s decision in Enka Insaat Ve Sanayi AS v OOO Insurance Company Chubb,1 certain matters2 were clear, if not universally popular.3 First, the principles of the Rome I Regulation4 apply to determine the main contract’s governing law. Second, in order to identify the arbitration agreement’s proper law, the traditional common law method had to be applied. Thus, as regards the arbitration agreement, a court must ask: (a) was there an express choice
* Lecturer in Commercial Dispute Resolution at BPP Law School; Barrister. The author is grateful to Professor A Briggs and Helen Morton for their assistance.
1. [2020] EWCA Civ 574 (hereafter, “Enka”).
2. Enka, [70]. See also Kabab-Ji SAL (Lebanon) v Koup Food Group (Kuwait) [2020] EWCA Civ 6, [36–37] and Sulamérica Cia Nacional de Seguros SA v Enesa Engelharia SA [2012] EWCA Civ 638; [2012] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 671, [9].
3. A Briggs, Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments, 6th edn (Informa Law from Routledge, 2015), [8.08], 776–777, where the author describes as “unconvincing” the view that the law governing the arbitration agreement must be determined by the rules of the common law.
4. Regulation (EC) No 593/2008.
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