法院裁定终止仲裁员的授权有关问题（印度案例）

更新时间：2017-10-22 14:23:44  张振安 临时仲裁ADA 编辑：lianluobu  点击次数：1343次

在“HRDCorporation 诉 Gail (India) Ltd. (裁定于2017年8月31日作出)”案中，印度最高法院认为，在对《1996仲裁与调解法修正案》（以下简称“《法案》”）的第七附表进行解读时，任何违反第12（5）条的行为，可求助于该法第14条，法院在这种情况下有权终止仲裁员的授权。最高法院阐明，该救济的使用仅限于与仲裁员是否“不适任”（根据第七附表所列的任何理由）有关的问题。至于第五附表所列的有关独立性和公正性的理由，法院认为，唯一的补救办法是根据该法第13条提起回避程序。

《法案》第三章第12至第14条涉及仲裁庭的组成问题：第12条规定了回避理由，现在这些理由也包括“无资格担任仲裁员”。第13条规定了回避程序，该程序允许当事人自由达成协议，在未达成一致意见时，当事人只能直接向仲裁庭提出异议。第14条规定，对仲裁员的授权在特定情况下可被终止，如果该仲裁员在事实上或法律上不能履行其职责。

该裁定解决了《法案》长期存在的问题。对于《法案》第14条的范围，各高等法院曾持不同的观点。在2015年对《法案》进行修订之后，德里高等法院在其作出的一些裁定书中已经认定，法院有权根据第七附表所列理由终止仲裁员的授权。最高法院现已对这种处理方案予以支持。

存在的问题

根据《联合国国际贸易法委员会（UNCITRAL）国际商事仲裁示范法》（以下简称“《UNCITRAL示范法》”），对仲裁员提出回避的默认程序是直接向仲裁庭提出申请。若申请被驳回，异议人则有权向法院提出上诉。值得注意的是，这类未决诉讼的存在并不妨碍仲裁程序的继续进行。

印度在采纳《UNCITRAL示范法》时，立法机关曾有意识地排除了当事人在法院诉讼的选择权，而赋予当事人根据这些事由就裁决提出异议的权利，其目的在于对仲裁过程中限制法院诉讼额干预。考虑到印度独有的诉讼拖沓问题，这种偏离是必要的且通常能保持良好的运作。

然而，立法无法预见所有的潜在情况并对其加以规定——普通法完全承认这一点。在是非分明的情况下（例如：一方当事人任命一个与其有密切财务关系的人或根据协议没有资格的人，或任命其首席执行官作为仲裁员），这种限制显得很不公平。许多人认为，这类情况应被立即予以纠正，因其要求当事人继续仲裁程序并在裁决作出后再对裁决提出异议，这种解决办法非常不理想。

混乱的局面

需求不仅是创新之母，也是法院所有创新论点的起源。鉴于诉诸法院的选择已经被有意识地从法令中删除，通过其他方法对这种选择进行解读存在很大困难。本案中，最高法院接受了当事人提出的回避请求并援引《法案》第14条认为，在明显缺乏独立性和公正性的情况下，被如此任命的仲裁员应被视为在法律上的不能履行其职责。

“疑难案件出坏法”，出于实际原因，有些法院（只是有时候）经不住诱惑同意在这些情况下行使第14条规定的权力。最终，各高等法院作出的大量裁定对该问题至少持三种不同意见：

显然，第一种观点认为，与独立性和公正性有关的事项没有理由成为第14条规定的“法律上不适任”的基础。

第二种观点认为，法院在特定情况下可根据第14条进行干预，但只有在第12和第13条未被援引的情况下（有效的岔路口条款）。

第三种观点与第二种观点正好相反，认为第12、13条和第14条是“瀑布条款”（条款的适用具有优先顺序）而不是“岔路口条款”（可选择其中之一适用），认为第14条只有在当事人根据第13条提出回避异议并失败时才可以适用。

虽然这三种观点中的第一种确实是主流观点，但该观点对于解决判例（有关仲裁员任免）的混乱还远不够理想。该问题引起了印度第二十法律委员会的关注。

法律委员会的解决方案

《印度法律委员会第246次报告》（以下简称“《报告》”）的重点之一是解决仲裁员的中立问题。由公共部门企业指定现有员工作为仲裁员的实践已经获得最高法院的批准，这种明显的反常现象只能通过立法来纠正。为此，《报告》建议对第12至14条的规定进行实质性变更，并特别引入了《法案》的第七附表。委员会提议增加第12（5）条，这条使存在这种关系（即雇佣关系）的人员无资格担任仲裁员。就第14条所采用的“法律上”的措辞，在意识到该措辞的范围可能会引起争议之后，《报告》已建议对第14条添加一个解释并阐明，根据第12（5）条不适任的人员将被视为在法律上不能履行其职责。

修正案：只差一步

《法律委员会第246次报告》是一个经过深入研究和平衡的法律改革建议。不幸的是，从孕育到诞生的过程中，某些规定在无任何表面充分理由的情况下仍然被修改。尽管对第12至14条的修改建议几乎均被采纳，但对第14条提出的解释却被忽略了，这使得第12（5）条的作用形同虚设。

最高法院在“HRD Corporation”案中进行弥补

最高法院在对法律委员会的报告，《IBA指引》以及被修订的条款进行综合考虑后得出结论认为，根据第12（5）条，无资格被任命的任何人即被视为“在法律上不适任”，这种方法与法律委员会之前的建议（即增加对14条的解释）所得出的结论相同。

在解决该长期争论时，法院明确认为：“自2016修正案之后，《法案》对‘无资格’被任命为仲裁员的人员，以及对其独立性和公正性存在合理怀疑的人员进行了区分”，并认为前者可通过第14条而后者则可通过第13条分别进行补救。

在得出这一结论的过程中，法院制定了一些有用的原则对该法第五附表和第七附表中的条款（entries）进行解释。法庭上出现了一个有趣的论点：因对最终结果（即裁决）的异议只能基于一些狭窄的理由，所以，在程序开始时应运用更强有力的倾向性测试，对条款的解释也应更加宽泛。法院驳回了该论点并根据《IBA指引》的起源和目的认为应采用广义的常识性解释方法，这种方法“要求对条款所使用的措辞进行合理的解释，而不能倾向于不正当地对其进行扩张或限缩解释。”

下一步会如何？

无疑，最高法院的裁定是受欢迎的，该裁定以对当事人有利的方式解决了这一问题。高等法院和最高法院均未考虑的是：尽管可以通过解释达到相同的结果（当然考虑到这一遗漏原本是合理的做法），但若法院没有接受法律委员会的建议（即关于对第14条进行解释的建议），对这些修订的解释应包括哪些含义（如有）？

最后，法院在该裁定书的附带意见中认为，“Saw Pipes”案和“Western Geco”案的裁定都已被此次的修订“明确废除”。法院还指出，第34条和第48条已经重新回到了“Renusagar”案的法律地位。这与通常的理解完全不同，我们饶有兴趣地期待下级法院在接下来的几个月将会如何对Nariman大法官此方面的意见作出解释。

 

【英文版】

Court’sPower to Terminate Arbitrator’s Mandate:

SCSettles Long Outstanding Debate

 Sumit Rai

In HRD Corporation v Gail (India) Ltd.(decided on August 31, 2017), the Supreme Court held that for any infraction of section 12(5) read with the Seventh Schedule of the amended Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ( the “Act”), recourse to section 14 of the Act would be available and the court would have the power to terminate the mandate of the arbitrator in such cases. It clarified that this remedy would be available only with respect to the question as to whether the arbitrator was “ineligible” under any ground listed in the Seventh Schedule. As to the grounds relating to independence and impartiality listed in the Fifth Schedule, the Court held that the challenge procedure under section 13 of the Act would be the exclusive remedy.

Sections 12 to 14 are part of Chapter III of the Act dealing with composition of arbitral tribunal. Section 12 provides the grounds for challenge, which now includes the grounds for ineligibility to act as an arbitrator as well. Section 13 provides the procedure for such challenge, which parties are free to agree upon – failing which the challenge must be made to the arbitral tribunal itself. Section 14 provides certain situations in which the mandate of an arbitrator may be terminated because he becomes de facto or de jure incapable of performing his functions.  

The decision settles a long outstanding issue under the Act. There were multiple views of various High Courts on the scope of section 14 of the Act. Following the amendments made in 2015 to the Act, a few decisions of the Delhi High Court had read the power to terminate an arbitrator’s mandate on grounds listed in the Seventh Schedule. The Supreme Court has now approved that approach.

The Problem

Under the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (the “Model Law”), the default procedure for challenging an arbitrator is to make an application to the arbitration tribunal itself. If the application fails, a right to appeal to the court is provided – cautioning at the same time that the arbitration would continue unhindered despite pendency of any such court proceeding.

While adapting the Model Law to India, the legislature consciously chose to exclude the option of appealing a decision of challenge in court. Parties were instead given the right to challenge the award on this ground. The rationale was to restrict potential court actions during the pendency of arbitration. Given the unique problems with litigation delays in India, it was a deviation that was necessary and has generally worked well.

However, a legislation can never foresee and provide for all potential situations – something common law acknowledges fully. In an evidently black-and-white situation, this restriction felt unjust.For instance, if a party appointed someone who had very close financial ties with that party as an arbitrator, or appointed someone who did not have the qualification mentioned in the agreement, or appointed say its own CEO. Such cases, many felt, ought to be rectified right away. In such situations, to ask parties to continue with arbitration and challenge the award would be far from ideal.

The Confusion

Need is not just the mother of all inventions, it is also the genesis of all innovative contentions in courts of law. Given that the option to appeal to court was consciously removed from the statute, it was an uphill task to read that very option through some other route. The challenge was accepted and section 14 of the Act was invoked to contend that in a clear case of lack of independence and impartiality, the person so appointed should be considered de jure incapable of performing the functions of an arbitrator.

Hard cases make bad law. For pragmatic reasons, some courts (and only some of the times) yielded to the temptation and agreed to exercise powers under section 14 in such cases. Eventually, a plethora of decisions of various High Courts gave rise to at least three different views on the subject:

– one view, as should be obvious, was that on no pretext could an issue relating to independence and impartiality be aground for de jure inability under section 14. 

– the second view was that in specific circumstances the court could intervene under section 14 but only if no recourse to sections 12 and 13 had been taken – effectively taking a fork in the road view.

– the third view was the exact opposite of the second, considering sections 12, 13 and 14 as waterfall provisions rather than fork in the road, effectively holding that section 14 would be available only after one raised the issue in section 13 and failed.

While the first of the three views did come to be the dominant view, it was far from ideal to have such confusion with respect to the jurisprudence on appointment and removal of arbitrators. This caught the attention of the 20th Law Commission of India.

Law Commission’s Solution

One of the focal points of the 246th Report of the Law Commission of India (“Report”) was to address the issue of neutrality of arbitrators. The practice of appointing existing employees as arbitrator by the public sector enterprises having received the blessing from the Supreme Court, it became a glaring aberration which could only be corrected legislatively. For this reason, the Report proposed a substantial change in the scheme of sections 12 to 14 and inter alia introduced what became the Seventh Schedule to the Act. It proposed section 12(5) which made people with such relationship ineligible to be arbitrators. Being conscious of the controversy surrounding the scope of the term “de jure” in section 14, the Report had proposed adding an Explanation to section 14 clarifying that a person ineligible under section 12(5) would be deemed de jure incapable of performing his functions.

The Amendment: Half-a-Step Short

The 246th Report of the Law Commission was an extremely well-researched and balanced piece of law reform recommendation.Unfortunately, in the journey from the incubator to birth, certain provisions were tinkered with without any ostensibly good reason. While adopting almost all recommendations for amendment to sections 12 to 14, the proposed Explanation to section 14 was omitted. This made section 12(5) look like a dogthat could bark but not bite.

HRD Corporation: SC Adds the Bite

The Supreme Court considered the Law Commission’s report, the IBA Guidelines, and the amended provisions to conclude that anyone ineligible to be appointed under section 12(5) would be de jure incapable – effectively arriving at the conclusion that the Law Commission had recommended adding as an Explanation.

Settling the long debate, the Court expressly held that “[a]fter the 2016 Amendment Act, dichotomy is made by the Act between persons who became “ineligible” to be appointed as arbitrators, and persons about whom justifiable doubts exist as to their independence and impartiality”. For the former, the court held the remedy lies in section 14 and for the latter in section 13 respectively.

In the process of arriving at this conclusion, the court laid down some helpful principles to be adopted in interpreting the entries in Fifth and Seventh Schedules to the Act. An interesting argument before the court was that since the final result, i.e.,the award is to be challenged on narrower grounds, the bias test to be applied at the initiation of the process should be stronger. Therefore, the entries must be interpreted in more expansive manner. The Court rejected the contention and relying on the origin and purpose of the IBA Guidelines held that a broad common-sensical approach must be taken. The court held that “[t]his approach would, therefore, require a fair construction of the words used therein,neither tending to enlarge or restrict them unduly”.

WhatNext?

No doubt the apex court’s decision is welcome and settles the law on this issue in a manner that is likely to be beneficial to litigants. One consideration that is mysteriously absent in the discussion both of the High Court and the Supreme Court is – what implication should, if any, the non-acceptance of Law Commission’s recommendation to include the Explanation in section 14 have on the interpretation of these amendments? While it would be permissible to reach the same result by interpretation, surely taking into account that omission would have been sound approach.

To end on an interesting note, an aside arising out of court’s obiter in this decision: the Court observes that both Saw Pipes and Western Geco have been “expressly done away with” by the amendments. The Court also notes that both sections 34 and 48 have been brought back to the position of law contained in Renusagar. This would be radically different from the understanding that is commonly held. It will be interesting to see how Justice Nariman’s observations in this regard are interpreted by lower courts in the months to come.