Akanksha Tyagi, Christ (Deemed To Be University)
ABSTRACT
International commercial contracts have a unique feature in that they almost always include an arbitration clause. Arbitration has its origins in a contract. It gives the parties more flexibility and freedom to choose not only the law that governs the contract, the arbitration agreement, and the seat of arbitration, but also to follow a set of procedures that are best suited to the issue at hand. The concept that every arbitration is subject to the assent of the parties is well-established and widely accepted. In most circumstances, when there are two parties to a dispute, a claimant and a responder, creating an agreement between the parties as the foundation for arbitration is quite uncomplicated. When a disagreement involves multiple parties or contracts, however, the same cannot be said. Multi-party and multi-contract issues have become ingrained in international dispute resolution. This is an unavoidable result of international trade becoming increasingly specialized and sophisticated. However, such disputes bring specific challenges that can degrade the arbitral process by causing a proliferation of parallel hearings and inconsistent conclusions, which can result in unjust and unsatisfactory outcomes for parties. In such situations, a series of arbitrations relating to the same dispute may be the result, with the possibility of inconsistent decisions. While making an agreement, parties rarely take into consideration the impact on the dispute resolution mechanism because of subsequent agreements with new parties. The implementation of court-ordered consolidation is one approach that several jurisdictions have attempted to address this problem and the inadequacies of arbitration in multi-party contractual disputes, as well as the effectiveness of court held consolidation as a solution to the problem.
Keywords: Arbitration; Consolidation; Court-ordered Consolidation; Consideration.
