Complex Arbitrations: Multi-party, Multi-contract and Multi-issue

A Comparative Study

Second Edition

Bernard Hanotiau

Arbitrations involving more than two parties and complex multi-contractual issues are becoming more and more prevalent every year in every major jurisdiction worldwide. This fully updated, extensively revised edition of a far-seeing 2006 book that has been greatly valued and widely used remains the only comprehensive analysis of all the issues arising from multi-party–multi-contract arbitrations, including those involving States and groups of companies.

The numerous factors and problems analysed in depth include the following:

• theories on the basis of which various courts and tribunals determine who are parties to the arbitration clause and whether a non-signatory may be part of the proceedings;
• to what extent one can bring to a single arbitration proceeding the various parties who have participated in a single economic transaction through several contracts;
• reasoning to follow when it comes to deciding whether another company of the group can be joined to the arbitration;
• whether a party to a complex contractual structure can intervene voluntarily in the proceedings;
• under what conditions arbitrations may be consolidated;
• to what extent res judicata applies when a second arbitration is initiated between the same parties on different legal grounds;
• how and to what extent one can overcome the inconveniences that arise from having several parallel proceedings; and
• enforcement of multi-party–multi-contract awards.

Features of particular value to the practitioner include in-depth analysis of ad hoc and institutional awards rendered under the auspices of numerous arbitral institutions; analysis of relevant national case law based on hundreds of court decisions from all over the world; and appendices specifying multi-party–multi-contract arbitration clauses, provisions of international conventions and relevant national legislative and institutional rules.

The first edition has been used all over the world, frequently referred to by courts and tribunals when one of its topics is addressed. The second edition, with its increased volume of arbitral awards and cases from many more jurisdictions, its new scenarios, its updates on new legislation and rules, and its newly researched jurisprudence will help lawyers and corporate counsel solve the increasingly complex procedural issues confronting them in dealing with multi-party–multi-contract disputes. Law professors and students of dispute resolution have here a powerfully authoritative consideration of one of the most salient aspects of current international practice.