Grounds for Judicial Intervention on International Arbitral Awards – Key Takeaways

Janice Perri, B.A. (Summa Cum Laude)Appeals, Arbitration, Commercial, Commercial and Contract Litigation, Commercial Arbitration, Commercial Leasing, Commercial Litigation, Construction | Builders, Construction Litigation, Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, UNCITRAL0 Comments

In Consolidated Contractors Group S.A.L. (Offshore) v. Ambatovy Minerals S.A., a decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, a USD$258 million project for the construction of a slurry pipeline from a nickel mine in the mountains of Madagascar to the coast lead to arbitration between the appellant (the contractor) and the respondent (tendered the project). After mutually agreeing to by-pass the adjudication stage of their three-stage dispute resolution process and go straight to a Tribunal, the appellant was only awarded $7M of its $91M claim and the respondent was awarded nearly $25M on its counterclaim. These awards were challenged on appeal as being made without jurisdiction, in breach of procedural fairness, and violating public policy. However, the appeal was dismissed. Judicial intervention in international arbitral awards under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law (the “Model Law”) – though given the force of law by the International Commercial Arbitration Act … Read More

The Low-Down on PIPEDA Requests in Personal Injury Cases

Gilbertson Davis LLPCivil Litigation, Insurance0 Comments

Seemingly out of nowhere, institutional litigants, insurers and the third-party vendors they retain to support their obligations in responding to claims have been inundated with requests for disclosure on pain of complaints or actions to collect damages under the Canadian federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).  In some instances, parties or their lawyers directly approach non-parties such as medical experts and private investigation companies and demand production of documents separately from any disclosure procedures in the claims or law suits. It is hard to point to any single rationale for employing the resort to the federal privacy legislation, except that obtaining access to personal information is probably not one of them.  Traditionally, a party to a personal injury law suit would, through his or her lawyer, be the conduit for information in health records, employment files and other personal data.  The defendant or respondent would be the … Read More