Evidence Not Before Tribunal Shut Out By Court On Appeal

Central Trading & Exports Ltd v. Fioralba Shipping Company (Kalisti S) [2014] EWHC 2397 (Comm)

When an arbitration award is appealed to the Court on the grounds that the Tribunal had no substantive jurisdiction, there is a complete rehearing of the issue of jurisdiction by the Court and not just a review of the arbitrators' decision. This means that the Court effectively starts again and decides the jurisdictional issue for itself and does not have to give any particular weight to the arbitrators' reasoning.

In general, a party is also entitled to put new evidence before the Court that was not put to the arbitrators. As this recent appeal decision in a shipping dispute demonstrates, however, this is not an unqualified right and the Court may, as part of its case management powers, refuse to allow a party to produce documents selectively where to do so would prejudice the other party or where the result would be a breach of the Court's rules requiring evidence to be presented in a fair manner. Parties arbitrating their disputes should...