仲裁协议的宽泛解释有助于推动澳大利亚仲裁

更新时间：2017-11-29 09:20:17  张振安 临时仲裁ADA 编辑：lianluobu  点击次数：2166次

澳大利亚联邦最高法院在HancockProspecting Pty Ltd v Rinehart 案裁定中确认，仲裁协议应当被自由地解释为假定选择仲裁的当事人意在通过这种方式来处理所有争议。

相应地，法院认为仲裁协议中“任何根据该合同而产生的争议”包括关于该合同本身的有效性的争议。在该裁定之前，澳大利亚解释仲裁协议存在不确定性，新南威尔士上诉法院审理Rinehart v Welker案（以下简称“Welker”）时认定同样的仲裁条款仅限于适用于那些合同调整或控制争议结果的争议。

Welker案中适用的方法被明确否定了，联邦最高法院的裁定很有可能提高澳大利亚仲裁的知名度，为商业仲裁提供一个便利的环境。

关键问题

Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd v Rinehart 是根据《2010商业仲裁法》第8（1）条规定提起诉讼，请求中间措施来中止仲裁程序（该程序中被申请人认为原告违反了特定的信托义务或者其中存在共谋）。

原告对这些指控提出了异议，被告认为，这些合同无效并且其中两份合同中包含的仲裁协议不适用该争议。

《CAA》第8（1）条规定了法院必须中止“属于仲裁协议管辖的事项”的诉讼，除非该仲裁协议无效或、无法实施、或可能无法实施。因此，一个关键的问题是当事人对这两份合同的有效性争议是否属于这些合同的仲裁协议的争议事项。这些合同中的仲裁协议均相同，规定“该合同项下的任何争议”必须诉诸仲裁。

一审案件裁定

Gleeson法官认为，合同有效性的争议不属于合同项下产生的争议，因此不属于仲裁协议的争议事项。

为了得出这个结论，法官依靠上诉法院在Welker案中的判决（其中涉及对相同合同中的仲裁协议的解释）。

在Welker案中，Bathurst首席大法官否定了现代权威案件，提出了新的解释规则，在解释仲裁协议时为了授予仲裁庭对当事人之间的所有争议具有管辖权而不考虑一般含义。首席大法官认为，这与合约解释的传统原则相悖。随后，法官审查了仲裁协议的具体措辞，并认定“合同项下的任何争议”涉及到的争议范围是有限的，即合同调整或者控制争议的结果而产生的争议。

本案中，Gleeson法官发现这些合同不能调整或控制关于争议有效性的结果，因此这些争议不属于相关合同的范围。因此，Gleeson 法官驳回了根据《CAA》第8（1）条提出的请求。

上诉人提起了上诉。

 

联邦最高法院的裁定

联邦最高法院在Allsop，Besanko和O'Callaghan 法官的共同裁定下，推翻了Gleeson 法官的判决。联邦最高法院认为，Gleeson法官和Bathurst法官都错误地对“项下”进行了语义分析，认为仲裁协议包含的争议范围有限。按照“一站式裁定”的推定，正确的方法是在其语言允许的情况下自由地解释仲裁协议。

与Bathurst法官和Gleeson法官的调查结果相反，联邦最高法院认为，“合同项下的任何争议”这一短语可以被自由地解释为包含更广泛的争议，而不仅仅是那些由合同调整或控制争议的结果。因此，关于合同有效性的争议是根据相关合同而产生的争议，因此也是仲裁协议的范围之内。为此，联邦最高法院裁定完全中止了诉讼程序。

该裁定的重要性

这个裁定采纳了源于90年代的英国和澳大利亚现代权威先例判决，支持对仲裁协议的解释采取宽松的态度，并将Welker案视为异常案例。根据联邦最高法院的裁定，法官、仲裁员和从业者不再需要把注意力放在区分仲裁协议中的常用形容词上，例如是根据相关合同产生的争议还是与合同有关的争议。这个自由的方法不仅反映了常识，而且也影响了仲裁协议当事人的客观意图，而仲裁协议当事人可能认为这些短语的意思是一样的。

该裁定意味着仲裁协议不太可能会被狭义地解释，而导致合同争议分别提交给法院和仲裁程序。这可能有助于推动澳大利亚成为商业仲裁的理想场所。

Full Federal Court decision likely to facilitate arbitration in Australia  

By CorrsChambers Westgarth

The Full Federal Court of Australia’s decision in Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd v Rinehart confirms that arbitration agreements are to be interpreted liberally on the presumption that parties choosing arbitration intend for all of their disputes to be dealt with in this way.

Relevantly,the Court held that an arbitration agreement applying to ‘any dispute under this deed’ included disputes regarding the validity of the deed itself. Prior to this decision, there was uncertainty in Australia as to the correct approach  to interpreting arbitration agreements, with the New South Wales Court of Appeal in Rinehart v Welker,[2](Welker) having found that this same clause applied narrowly to only those disputes which the deed governed or controlled the dispute’s outcome.

With the approach in Welker expressly rejected, the Full Federal Court’s decision is likely to raise Australia’s profile as offering a facilitative environment for commercial arbitration.

The key issue

Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd v Rinehart was an appeal from an interlocutory application under s 8(1) of the Commercial Arbitration Act 2010 (NSW) (CAA) seeking a stay of the underlying proceeding in which the respondents allege that the applicants/appellants breached certain fiduciary duties or were complicit in those breaches.

The applicants/appellants dispute those allegations and also rely upon several deeds whereby the respondents provided releasesinrelation to such claims. The respondents argue that those deeds are invalid and that the arbitration agreements contained in two of those deeds are not applicable to this dispute.

Section8(1) of the CAA states a court must stay an action ‘which is the subject of an arbitration agreement’ unless the arbitration agreement is ‘null and void,inoperative or incapable of being performed.’ A critical issue was therefore whether the parties’ disputes regarding the validity of the two deeds were the subject of the arbitration agreements in those deeds. The arbitration agreements in the deeds were identical to one another, providing that ‘any dispute under this deed’ must be referred to arbitration.

The primary judge’s decision

Gleeson J held that the disputes concerning the validity of the deeds were not disputes ‘under’ the deeds and were therefore not the subject of an arbitration agreement.

In reaching this conclusion, her Honour relied upon the judgment of Bathurst CJ in the NSW Court of Appeal in Welker which concerned the interpretation of the arbitration agreement in the same deeds.

In Welker, Bathurst CJ rejected modern authority which his Honour considered introduced a new rule of interpretation requiring an arbitration agreement to be interpreted without regard to its plain meaning in order to confer an arbitral panel with jurisdiction over all of the parties’ disputes. Accordingto the Chief Justice, this was inconsistent with orthodox principles of contractual interpretation. His Honour then examined the particular wording of the arbitration agreement and found that ‘any dispute under this deed’ referred to a narrow range of disputes, being disputes wherethe deed governed or controlled the dispute’s outcome.

Applied to the present case, Gleeson J found that the deeds could not govern or controlthe outcome of the disputes concerning their validity and therefore those disputes were not ‘under’ the respective deeds. Accordingly, Gleeson J dismissed the application under s 8(1) of the CAA.

The applicants/appellants appealed Gleeson J’s decision.

The Full Federal Court’s decision

The Full Federal Court, in the joint judgment of Allsop CJ, Besanko and O’CallaghanJJ, reversed Gleeson J’s decision. The Full Court considered that both Gleeson J and Bathurst CJ incorrectly undertook a semantic analysis of the word ‘under’in concluding that the arbitration agreement covered a narrow range of disputes. In line with the presumption of ‘one-stop adjudication’, the correct approach is to liberally interpret the arbitration agreement where its language permits.

Contrary to the findings of both Bathurst CJ and Gleeson J, the Full Court considered that the phrase ‘any dispute under this deed’ was capable of being interpreted liberally to encompass a much broader range of disputes than only those where the deed controlled or governed the dispute’s outcome. It followed that the disputes concerning the validity of the deeds were disputes ‘under’ the respective deeds and therefore the subject of an arbitration agreement. The Full Court stayed the proceedings in their entirety.

Why is this decision significant?

This decision adopts the modern line of English and Australian authority originating in the 1990s which supports a liberal approach to the interpretation of arbitration agreements and confirms that Welker is to be viewed as ananomaly. In light of the Full Federal Court’s decision, judges,arbitrators and practitioners are no longer required to focus on difficult distinctions between commonly used figurative phrases in arbitration agreements such as whether a dispute ‘arose out of’, was ‘in connection with’ or was‘under’ the relevant contract. The liberal approach not only reflects commonsense but also gives effect to the objective intention of parties to arbitration agreements, who likely consider such phrases as interchangeable.

This decision means that it is very unlikely that an arbitration agreement will be construed narrowly resulting in the bifurcation of a contractual dispute into court andarbitral proceedings. This will likely assist in promoting Australia as a desirable venue for commercial arbitration.