CL-2025-000046 - [2025] EWHC 1738 (Comm)

This is an application for the joinder of parties to an Arbitration Claim and for the hearing of Preliminary Issues in the Arbitration Claim.

The Claimant in the Arbitration Claim is the Republic of India (“India”). India is the Respondent to an Arbitration commenced against it in 2022 by three companies registered in Mauritius (“the Mauritian Companies”). In 2023 the court in Mauritius ordered that the Mauritian Companies be placed in administration. That gave rise to a dispute in the Arbitration as to who is entitled to represent the Mauritian Companies in the Arbitration. The Tribunal has decided that the law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher (who take their instructions from the directors and shareholders of the Mauritian Companies) is entitled to represent the Mauritian Companies in the Arbitration, not the Administrator.

India has issued an Arbitration Claim in which it seeks determination of a Question of Law pursuant to section 45 of the Arbitration Act 1996. The Question of Law is:

“Is the Tribunal seated in England required to apply Mauritian law (and only Mauritian law) (being the law of the place of incorporation of the Defendants) to determine who has authority to instruct lawyers to act on the Defendants’ behalf in the Arbitration?India served the Application Claim on the Administrator of the Mauritian Companies who has consented to the determination of the question of law.”

I infer that both India and the Administrator are not content with the decision of the Tribunal, though their counsel submitted that there was no challenge to the decision of the Tribunal. By contrast the directors and shareholders of the Mauritian Companies who have instructed Gibson Dunn & Crutcher are content with the decision of the Tribunal and wish to be heard on the Arbitration Claim. They say that the Arbitration Claim is “fundamentally misconceived” and should be dismissed. For that reason they have sought to intervene in the Arbitration Claim. There is no dispute that they may be permitted to do so but there is a dispute as to how they should be described. It is tempting to describe that dispute as technical and arid but underlying it lies a concern that whoever ultimately succeeds in the Arbitration Claim should be entitled to claim costs from the successful party. That is the first dispute that I must resolve. The second dispute which I must resolve is whether, as contended by the directors and shareholders of the Mauritian Companies, but resisted by India and the Administrator, there should be a determination of five Preliminary Issues before the Question of Law is determined. Those issues arise in the context of the case of the directors and shareholders that the Arbitration Claim is fundamentally misconceived.