The law of the arbitration agreement - Kabab-Ji v Kout Food Group

[Commodity Arbitration Club]

Dear Colleagues

At yesterday's luncheon at Clyde & Co, one of the discussion points was the recent case of Kabab-Ji v Kout Food Group in which the UK and French supreme courts reached diametrically opposite conclusions on the law applying to the validity of the arbitration agreement.

I am indebted to James Clanchy who has kindly shared the attached article which he has written on the subject of 'The law of the arbitration agreement—a lacuna in the ICC Arbitration Rules' following the judgement. As the article was written for subscribers of LexisNexis, he asks that it is not used for any wider circulation than our group.

The judgement can be found here: https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2020-0036-judgment.pdf

Kind regards

Philip Noyce

Hon. Sec.