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2018 (1) TMI 430
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....rd Terms and Conditions that were attached thereto. Apart from the other conditions, the Standard Terms and Conditions contain a clause pertaining to dispute resolution. The said clause provides for a dispute to be resolved by a sole arbitrator in accordance with the provisions of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The material on record indicates that the Respondent accepted all the terms and conditions mentioned in the Purchase Order except the delivery period as is evident from a letter dated 15.12.2012. 4. The Respondent, pursuant to the Purchase Order, supplied wind power cables to the Appellant. While laying the cables supplied by the Respondent-company, the Appellant discovered that the outer sheaths of the cables of 150 sq. mm. were cracked. This forced them to stop the WTGs so as to avert damage to expensive equipment. According to the Appellant, the Respondent-company did not replace the cables. The Appellant, therefore, was constrained to issue a notice dated 30.10.2014 proposing the name of a sole arbitrator in terms of the Standard Terms and Conditions. In the absence of any response, the Appellant moved the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad by filing a....
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.... the whole of it along with the arbitration clause contained in it. While distinguishing 'reference' to another document from 'incorporation', this Court observed that the relevant factor was the intention of the parties either to adopt the document in its entirety or to borrow specific portions of the said document. In this connection, the Court held as follows: (M.R. Engineers' case, para 17-19) "17. We will give a few instances of incorporation and mere reference to explain the position (illustrative and not exhaustive). If a contract refers to a document and provides that the said document shall form part and parcel of the contract, or that all terms and conditions of the said document shall be read or treated as a part of the contract, or that the contract will be governed by the provisions of the said document, or that the terms and conditions of the said document shall be incorporated into the contract, the terms and conditions of the document in entirety will get bodily lifted and incorporated into the contract. When there is such incorporation of the terms and conditions of a document, every term of such document (except to the extent it is inconsistent with any s....
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.... transactions, particularly those involving shipping and construction. This issue has to be determined by applying the usual principles of construction and attempting to infer the parties' intentions by means of an objective assessment of the evidence. This may make questions of incorporation irrelevant, if for example it is clear that the contractual documents in question are entirely separate and no intention to incorporate the terms of one in the other can be established. However, the contractual document defining and imposing the performance obligations may be found to incorporate another document which contains an arbitration agreement. If there is a dispute about the performance obligations, that dispute may need to be decided according to the arbitration provisions of that other document. This very commonly occurs when the principal contractual document refers to standard form terms containing an arbitration agreement. However the standard form wording may not be apt for the contract in which the parties seek to incorporate it, or the reference may be to another contract between parties at least one of whom is different. In these circumstances it may be possible to argue....
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....d as follows: (M.R. Engineers' case, para 24) "24. The scope and intent of Section 7(5) of the Act may therefore be summarised thus: (i) An arbitration clause in another document, would get incorporated into a contract by reference, if the following conditions are fulfilled: (1) the contract should contain a clear reference to the documents containing arbitration clause, (2) the reference to the other document should clearly indicate an intention to incorporate the arbitration clause into the contract, (3) the arbitration clause should be appropriate, that is capable of application in respect of disputes under the contract and should not be repugnant to any term of the contract. (ii) When the parties enter into a contract, making a general reference to another contract, such general reference would not have the effect of incorporating the arbitration clause from the referred document into the contract between the parties. The arbitration clause from another contract can be incorporated into the contract (where such reference is made), only by a specific reference to arbitration clause. (iii) Where a contract between the....
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....6 which extends to England, Wales and Northern Ireland is in pari materia with Section 7 (5) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 and it reads as under:- "6. Definition of arbitration agreement. ... (2) The reference in an agreement to a written form of arbitration clause or to a document containing an arbitration clause constitutes an arbitration agreement if the reference is such as to make that clause part of the agreement." 12. It will be useful to understand the interpretation of the incorporation issue in England. The question whether the general words of incorporation are sufficient to incorporate an arbitration agreement arose for consideration of the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Commercial Court in Sea Trade Maritime Corporation v. Hellenic Mutual War Risks Association (Bermuda) Limited, The Athena [2006] EWHC 2530 (Comm). In the said case the difference between incorporation in a single contract case and a two contract case was recognized. If there is a reference to a secondary document in a contract between two parties and that secondary document is a contract to which at least one party is different from the parties to the....
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....cular trade or industry. (2) A and B make a contract incorporating terms previously agreed between A and B in another contract or contracts to which they were both parties (3) A and B make a contract incorporating terms agreed between A (or B) and C. Common examples are a bill of lading incorporating the terms of a charter to which A is a party; reinsurance contracts incorporating the terms of an underlying insurance; excess insurance contracts incorporating the terms of the primary layer of insurance; and building or engineering sub contracts incorporating the terms of a main contract or sub-sub contracts incorporating the terms of a sub contract. (4) A and B make a contract incorporating terms agreed between C and D. Bills of lading, reinsurance and insurance contracts and building contracts may fall into this category." 15. In Habas's case (supra), Justice Christopher Clarke followed the ratio in the case of 'the Athena' (supra) and held that in single contract cases (categories 1 and 2), a general reference would be sufficient for incorporation of an arbitration clause from a standard form of contract. In cases falling under categories 3 and 4 ment....
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....o contract cases and reference to standard form terms it is relevant to examine Russell on Arbitration 24 th Edition (2015) which is as under: (See pp. 52-54, 24rd Edn.) "Reference to standard form terms, single and two contract cases. If the document sought to be incorporated is a standard form set of terms and conditions the courts are more likely to accept that general words of incorporation will suffice. This is because the parties can be expected to be more familiar with those standard terms, including the arbitration clause. In Sea Trade Maritime Corp v. Hellenic Mutual War Risks Association (Bermuda) Ltd, (The "Athena") No.2 the Court drew a distinction between what is described as a "two contract case", that is where the arbitration clause is contained in a secondary document which is a contract to which at least one party is different from the parties to the contract in question, and "a single contract case" where the arbitration clause is in standard terms to be found in another document. Relying on dictum of Bingham LJ in Federal Bulk Carries Inc v. C. Itoh & Co Ltd (The "Federal Bulker"), Langley J stated that: "In principle, English law accepts incorp....
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....s not on standard terms and constitutes an entirely separate agreement. The rationale for this approach is that the parties have already contracted on the terms said to be incorporated and are therefore even more likely to be familiar with the term relied on than a party resisting incorporation of a standard term. Put another way, if general words of incorporation are sufficient for the latter, they should be even more so for the former. The courts also appear to have accepted as a "single contract" case a situation where the contract referred to is between one of the parties to the original contract and a third party, where the contracts as a whole "were entered into in the context of a single commercial relationship".(Para 2-050) [Emphasis Supplied] 18. This Court in M.R. Engineers' case, which is discussed in detail supra, held the rule to be that an arbitration clause in an earlier contract cannot be incorporated by a general reference. The exception to the rule is a reference to a standard form of contract by a trade association or a professional institution in which case a general reference would be sufficient for incorporation of an arbitration clause. Reliance w....