Claim No: CL-2024-000563 - [2025] EWHC 1586 (Comm)

Fecha: 26-Jun-2025

Energyen’s jurisdiction challenges

Energyen’s jurisdiction challenges

A summary

55.

Section 30(1) of the 1996 Act provide as follows:

“(1)
Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, the arbitral tribunal may rule on its own substantive jurisdiction, that is, as to—
(a)
whether there is a valid arbitration agreement,
(b)
whether the tribunal is properly constituted, and
(c)
what matters have been submitted to arbitration in accordance with the arbitration agreement.”

56.

In this case, Mr Dunning KC advances arguments under each of the three limbs of s.30(1), but by reference to essentially the same or similar underlying complaints:

The Tribunal made an award in favour of the HHI 2019 Company.

ii)

No claim by the HHI 2019 Company was ever submitted in the arbitration, referred to the tribunal nor were arbitrators appointed in respect of any such claim.

iii)

The arbitration was commenced by the Original HHI Signatory, and the disputes falling within the scope of this particular reference as set out in the ToR were limited to claims by the Original HHI Signatory.

iv)

There was no valid arbitration agreement between Energyen and the HHI 2019 Company.

57.

I have already determined this last issue in the Defendants’ favour. The surviving arguments can be approached by reference to two issues:

Who commenced the arbitration?

If it was the HHI Original Signatory, Ms Morgan does not suggest that there was ever any change to that state of affairs.

In those circumstances, it would follow that the tribunal had no jurisdiction to make an award in favour of the HHI 2019 Company, even if (as I have found) it was the HHI 2019 Company which was entitled to enforce the arbitration agreement in the Supply Contract and to enforce the contractual claims under the Supply Contract.

That would leave an issue as to what relief I should order in circumstances in which the HHI Original Signatory had commenced an arbitration which culminated in an award in the arbitral claimant’s favour, in which there has been no challenge to the arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction to make an award in the arbitral claimant’s favour.

ii)

If it was the HHI 2019 Company which commenced the arbitration, did it do so validly, and/or did any claim by the HHI 2019 Company form part of the arbitral reference?

iii)

(Although Mr Dunning KC was careful not to submit that this issue was jurisdictional, it appears to be so advanced in paragraph 11 of the Re-Amended Claim Form) Was there a requirement for the HHI 2019 Company to give some form of notice before commencing the arbitration, did it do so, and, if not, what consequences flow from this?