The Commercial Bar Association of Victoria Inc. A0120851O
The High Court has held that where parties have agreed to arbitrate any dispute, and the International Arbitration Act applies, even a real risk (or prima facie case) that the arbitration agreement is null and void will not prevent the stay of any court proceedings and referral of the matter to arbitration.
The Western Australian Court of Appeal upholds a primary judge’s decision that an arbitral tribunal’s interim award on liability meant that the tribunal was functus officio and prevented it considering additional liability issues in a bifurcated arbitration.
The County Court of Victoria has recently created a specialist Arbitration List to facilitate the voluntary referral of appropriate commercial proceedings to arbitration. How the list works and what this means for litigants is explained below.
Case Note by Paul Czarnota. The German case of Pechstein v ISU has thrown some doubt over the validity and enforceability of arbitral awards rendered by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the arbitral tribunal established to determine international sporting disputes. Pechstein may provide a future avenue for challenging sports arbitral awards globally, and in Australia.
Handshake agreement did not waive or vary requirement in Mediation Agreement for a signed settlement agreement.
The Victorian Supreme Court and Court of Appeal granted urgent enforcement of a Swiss arbitral award obtained by a Formula 1 driver against his former team.
Croft J was asked to consider whether a hearing before the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal was a “domestic commercial arbitration” pursuant to the Commercial Arbitration Act 2011 for the purpose of issuing subpoenas to compel third parties to give evidence or produce documents.
Are proceedings before the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal an “arbitration” for the purposes of the Commercial Arbitration Act 2011 (Vic) such that ASADA is entitled to subpoenas pursuant to section 27A of the Act requiring witnesses to attend and produce documents before the Tribunal?
A majority of the Victorian Court of Appeal has found that VCAT is a “court” for the purposes of s8 of the Commercial Arbitration Act 2011 (the CAA) with the result that if a party to the arbitration agreement so requests, the Tribunal is precluded from hearing the proceeding and the dispute must be referred to arbitration.
This case considers the requirements of procedural fairness in an arbitration.
APRAG recently hosted its 10th anniversary conference in Melbourne, at which key issues concerning arbitration in the Asia-Pacific region were discussed.
Article by Robert Williams and Eugenia Levine
This case decided that VCAT is not a “court” for the purposes of the Commercial Arbitration Act 2011 (“CAA”) and therefore is not obliged to refer parties to arbitration in accordance with section 8 of the CAA where the matter before VCAT is the subject of an arbitration agreement.
The High Court of Australia’s judgment in TCL Air Conditioner (Zhongshan) Co Ltd v The Judges of the Federal Court of Australia [2013] HCA 5 (13 March 2013) is the most important development in arbitration in Australia in the past 12 months, and has been keenly awaited by arbitration users and practitioners.