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Showing contexts for: void contract arbitration in M/S. Magma Leasing & Fin. Ltd. & Anr vs Potluri Madhavilata & Anr on 18 September, 2009Matching Fragments
"An arbitration clause is a written submission, agreed to by the parties to the contract, and, like other written submissions to arbitration, must be construed according to its language and in the light of the circumstances in which it is made. If the dispute is as to whether the contract which contains the clause has ever been entered into at all, that issue cannot go to arbitration under the clause, for the party who denies that he has ever entered into the contract is thereby denying that he has ever joined in the submission. Similarly, if one party to the alleged contract is contending that it is void ab initio (because, for example, the making of such a contract is illegal), the arbitration clause cannot operate, for on this view the clause itself is also void.
"An arbitration clause is a written submission, agreed to by the parties to the contract, and, like other written submissions to arbitration, must be construed according to its language and in the light of the circumstances in which it is made. If the dispute is as to whether the contract which contains the clause has ever been entered into at all, that issue cannot go to arbitration under the clause, for the party who denies that he has ever entered into the contract is thereby denying that he has ever joined in the submission. Similarly, if one party to the alleged contract is contending that it is void ab initio (because, for example, the making of such a contract is illegal), the arbitration clause cannot operate, for on this view the clause itself is also void.
This decision is not directly in point; but the principles laid down therein are of wider application than the actual decision involved. If an arbitration clause is couched in widest terms as in the present case, the dispute, whether there is frustration or repudiation of the contract, will be covered by it. It is not because the arbitration clause survives, but because, though such repudiation ends the liability of the parties to perform the contract, it does not put an end to their liability to pay damages for any breach of the contract. The contract is still in existence for certain purposes. But where the dispute is whether the said contract is void ab initio, the arbitration clause cannot operate on those disputes, for its operative force depends upon the existence of the contract and its validity. So too, if the dispute is whether the contract is wholly superseded or not by a new contract between the parties, such a dispute must fall outside the arbitration clause, for, if it is superseded, the arbitration clause falls with it."
(b) a decision by the Arbitral Tribunal that the contract is null and void shall not entail ipso jure the invalidity of the arbitration clause."
(emphasis supplied) Modern laws on arbitration confirm the concept.
28. The United States Supreme Court in a recent judgment in Buckeye Check Cashing Inc. v. Cardegna [546 US 460 (2005)] acknowledged that the separability rule permits a court "to enforce an arbitration agreement in a contract that the arbitrator later finds to be void". The Court, referring to its earlier judgments in Prima Paint Corpn. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co.[18 L.Ed. 2d 1270] and Southland Corpn. v. Keating [465 US 1 (1984)], inter alia, held: