Successful challenges under s. 68 of the 1996 Act are rare. Stonegate Farmers Limited v. Chucks Farms Limited [2026] EWHC 742 (Comm); [2026] 2 WLUK 820 was such a rare case.
HHJ Russen KC (sitting as a Judge of the High Court) found that, contrary to s. 33(1)(a) of the 1996 Act, the arbitrator had failed to act fairly and impartially as between the parties. The arbitrator had awarded damages against Stonegate based on an implied term which, on Stonegate’s case, it had no reasonable opportunity to address prior to the award. The Judge held that this serious irregularity caused substantial injustice to Stonegate as (“to put the point at its lowest”) it was realistically arguable that no such term should be implied.
The Court addressed a range of significant topics: (i) the circumstances in which an arbitrator will breach the duty to act fairly and impartially; (ii) the scope of the ‘in play’ / ‘essential building blocks’ principle; (iii) the relevance (and importance) of a s. 57 request and response following an award affected by serious irregularity; (iv) the ‘substantial injustice’ test; (v) the circumstances in which non-payment of a disputed award may affect a s. 68 challenge; (vi) the strict and multi-layered test of necessity that applies to the implication of terms in fact; and (vii) the relationship between a challenge under s. 68 and an application under s. 69 for permission to appeal on a point of law.
The judgment (redacted to protect commercially sensitive material) can be found here: Stonegate Farmers Limited v Chucks Farm Limited – Find Case Law – The National Archives.
Rahul and Rosamund were instructed by Lucinda Smart, Ed Richards, and Ben Walton of the Commercial Dispute Resolution team at Forsters.
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