Insights

On 18 September 2024, the UK Supreme Court handed down its judgment in UniCredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC [2024] UKSC 30.  The judgment considers several significant issues relevant to international arbitration.  Primarily, though, it reaffirms: (i) the English court’s strong support for arbitration, in general; (ii) the steps it is prepared to take to hold parties to their agreement to arbitrate; and (iii) the current position for determining the governing law of an arbitration agreement, in the absence of an express election by the parties.

Shortly after its important decision on the governing law of arbitration agreements in Enka Insaat Ve Sanayi AS v OOO Insurance Company Chubb [2020] UKSC 38 (as covered in our recent alert here), the U.K. Supreme Court has handed down another judgment long awaited by arbitration participants and practitioners – namely, Halliburton Company v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd [2020] UKSC 48, which is set to become the leading authority on arbitrators’ duties of impartiality and disclosure. 

The London Court of International Arbitration (the LCIA) released an update to its Arbitration Rules, which took effect on October 1, 2020 (the 2020 Rules). While the LCIA has characterised the 2020 Rules as a “light touch”1 update on the 2014 edition of the rules (the 2014 Rules), there are some notable developments which bring the 2020 Rules in line with modern practice and other institutions’ rules.

In May 2020, the UK Cabinet Office published a document entitled “Guidance on responsible contractual behaviour in the performance and enforcement of contracts impacted by the COVID-19 emergency.” The Guidance is available here. Its stated purpose is to encourage parties whose contracts have been affected by COVID-19 to act responsibly and fairly, to support the government’s response to COVID-19, and to protect jobs and economy.

On February 6, 2019, the U.K. government announced plans to move forward on advanced trials for self-driving vehicles, the result of which could allow for fully driverless cars onto U.K. roads later this year.

In the recent case Rock Advertising Limited v MWB Business Exchange Centres Limited,1 the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom considered whether a contractual term, which purported to preclude oral variations to a contract, was of legal effect. In holding that it was, the Court has significantly shifted English contract law. Previously, such terms were typically found to be ineffective; that is no longer the case.

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This alert follows our previous review of the judgment of the U.K. Supreme Court in IPCO (Nigeria) Limited v Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation [2017] UKSC 16 (IPCO). That case concerned a challenge to enforcement of a New York Convention arbitration award and considered whether the provision of security on the award value could be made a prerequisite to launching such a challenge. In a unanimous judgment, the Supreme Court held the provision of security may only be made a prerequisite in cases of adjournment pending resolution of a challenge in the courts of the seat of arbitration.

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In IPCO (Nigeria) Limited v Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation [2017] UKSC 16, a unanimous bench of five members of the Supreme Court held that the English courts may not condition a New York Convention award debtor’s challenge to award enforcement under the Convention and Arbitration Act 1996 upon payment of security on the award’s value, except in cases of adjournment pending resolution of a challenge in the courts of the seat of arbitration. The judgment, dated 1 March 2017, is available here.

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In a judgment dated 24 January 2017, by a majority of 8 to 3,1 the Supreme Court has upheld the High Court’s ruling in November 2016 that an Act of Parliament is required before the UK Government may give notice under Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU), thereby beginning the formal process of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. However, the Court found unanimously that no pre-approval is required from the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A summary of the judgment is available here.

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In a judgment dated 3 November 2016, the High Court ruled that the government of the United Kingdom does not have the power to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to begin the formal process of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Instead, an Act of Parliament is required. A summary of the judgment is available here. The government intends to appeal the judgment to the Supreme Court, which, we understand, has indicated that the full panel of eleven judges will hear the case over four days during the week of 5 December 2016.

In the recent English High Court judgment Gerald Metals S.A. v Timis & Ors [2016] EWHC 2327 (Ch), Mr Justice Leggatt provided the first guidance regarding the interaction of the Court’s powers to grant interim or conservatory measures in support of arbitration with the provisions for emergency measures in arbitration. Such emergency provisions, including expedited appointment of arbitration tribunals and emergency arbitrators, have proliferated among institutional rules in recent years. His guidance suggests that, where arbitral rules provide for such procedures, but the arbitral institution has declined to activate them in support of a party’s application, the English Court will now be loath to interpose its own measures.

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