‘A book has been cited to me: Harris Plantrose and Teck on the Arbitration Act 1996 . It explains, without giving its source, those words ‘not covered by legal provisions’. What is said is that those words were inserted to take account of particular situations in the Netherlands, Portugal and, it is believed, also Spain, which have special statutory arbitration schemes to allow consumers easy access to justice. It goes on:
‘The precise effect of the paragraph is therefore to render unfair any clause providing exclusively for arbitration to the exclusion of the courts, other than a special statutory scheme specifically designed to assist consumers.’
Mr Jinadu initially argued that ‘not covered by legal provisions’ included a reference to the Arbitration Act 1996. Therefore (q) did not apply. But he recognised that that would have rendered (q) totally nugatory and that could not possibly be the construction of the Article.
Therefore, it seems to me that whatever the words ‘not covered by legal provision’ may mean, and it may well be that the book I have just quoted is right, it is not something which cuts down the meaning of the other words, at least for present purposes. On that basis it is perfectly clear that the clause does fall within (q).’
Judges:
Judge Havery QC
Citations:
Unreported, 19 March 1999
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Soleymani v Nifty Gateway Llc ComC 24-Mar-2022
Arbitration jurisdiction applications stayed
The claimant sought declaratory relief as to the basis of a purchase after he placed a bid for a blockchain-based non-fungible token (also known as an NFT) associated with an artwork by the artist known as Beeple titled ‘Abundance’. The court was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Consumer, Arbitration
Updated: 04 April 2022; Ref: scu.675523
