Royal and Sun Alliance (“R&S”) reinsured liabilities for certain BAE Companies. The parties entered into a Reinsurance agreement which contained a dispute resolution agreement (“DRA”). The DRA provided for English law to be the governing law and referred various disputes to arbitration incorporating the Rules of the London Court of International Arbitration (“LCIA Rules”). A dispute arose, and an arbitration panel made a partial award in favor of BAE. R&S sought to appeal the award to the English Courts on a point of law.
The question that arose was whether section 69 of the UK Arbitration Act of 1996 required an agreement of the parties permitting an appeal, or an agreement of the parties to dispense with the requirement to seek leave of the court. The Court resolved the issue in R&S’s favor as a pure question of construction, holding that Section 69 could not be held to require an agreement between the parties to dispense with the requirement to seek leave of the court. Royal & Sun Alliance Ins. v. BAE Systems, [2008] EWHC 743 (Comm. Apr. 15, 2008).
This post written by Lynn Hawkins.