Herbert Smith Freehills review the English Commercial Court’s 2017 decision in Oldham v. QBE Insurance (Europe) Ltd [2017] EWHC 3045 (Comm), where the Court held that the arbitrator’s decisions on costs could be challenged on grounds of serious irregularity under s.68 of the English Act on the basis that the applicant had been denied the opportunity to make submissions.
As the authors observe, this is a rare instance of the English Courts intervening in the conduct of an arbitration in order to protect the integrity of the process, and ensure equal treatment of parties to the arbitration, and significant due to the Court’s clarification that the duty of the arbitral tribunal to act fairly and impartiality as between the parties under the Act applies with regard to the arbitrator’s decisions on costs.
