-Gunjan Chhabra
Partner, Dispute Resolution
This post is a short post of mine as it is in anticipation of a soon (or may be not so soon) to be delivered verdict of a bench of the Supreme Court of India. Recently on the 1st of May 2018, a bench of Justices R.K. Agarwal and A.M Sapre, were confronted with a question involving the determination of seat of arbitration in an International Commercial Arbitration. This question had come up in the case of “Union of India v. Hardy Exploration and Production (India) Inc. 2018(3)ArbLR156(SC)”.
The Court while analyzing the rival submission of both parties, observed that, “…though, the question regarding the “seat” and “venue” for holding arbitration proceedings by the arbitrators arising under the Arbitration Agreement/International Commercial Arbitration Agreement is primarily required to be decided keeping in view the terms of the arbitration agreement itself, but having regard to the law laid down by this Court in several decisions by the Benches of variable strength as detailed above… we are of the considered view that this is a fit case to exercise our power Under Order VI Rule 2 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 and refer this case (appeal) to be dealt with by the larger Bench of this Court for its hearing “.
In view of the above observation, the question of the factors determining the seat will receive a conclusive consideration by the Supreme Court of India in the soon to come time.
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