Secretary of State for Transport. [2015] EWCA Civ 172 and see commentary in the national press on the case and the influence of EU law on the legal issues raised: xxxxx://xxx.xxxxxxxxx.xx.xx/news/article-2647603/Drug-dealer-injured-crash-millions-compensation- Government-huge-block-cannabis-fell-jacket-pulled-wreckage.html [all websites accessed on 29 April 2020 unless otherwise stated].
Secretary of State for Transport. Address10: Great Xxxxxxx Xxxxx, 00 Xxxxxxxxxx Xxxx, Xxxxxx XX0X 0XX Attention: Director, Rail Commercial Contracts E-mail: Xxxxxxxxx.Xxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xxx.xx Facsimile 0207 944 2446 Name:11 12 Directly Operated Railways and East Coast Main Line Company Limited Address: 0xx Xxxxx, 0 Xxxxxxxx Xxxx, Xxxxxx, XX0X 0XX Attention: Chief Executive, Directly Operated Railways Limited E-mail13: xxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xx.xx Deemed Receipt 9 Date of change 08/02/2011 10 Date of Change 01/10/2011 11 Date of change 05/05/2010 12 Date of change 09/09/2014 13 Date of change 02/07/2012
Secretary of State for Transport. [2005] EWCA Civ 291 underscored the contextual nature of determining what constitutes a dispute: “Secondly, however, like most words, “dispute” takes its flavor from its context. Where arbitration clauses are concerned, the word has on the whole caused little trouble. If arbitration has been claimed and it emerges that there is after all no dispute because the claim is admitted, there is unlikely to be any dispute about the question of whether there had been any dispute to take to arbitration. And if the claim is disputed, any argument that the arbitration had not been justified because at the time it was invoked there had not been any dispute is, it seems to me, unlikely to find a receptive audience (although it appears that it did in Cruden Construction v Commission for the New Towns [1995] 2 Xxxxx’x Rep 37). So it is that in this arbitration context the real challenge to the existence of a “dispute” has arisen where a party seeking summary judgment in the courts had been met by a request for a stay to arbitration and the claimant has wanted to argue that an unanswerable claim cannot be a real dispute. In that context it was held in Xxxxxx v Xxxxxx and Home Insurance [1990] 2 Xxxxx’x Rep 265 that for the purposes of s 1 of the Arbitration act 1975 “there is not in fact any dispute” where a claim is unanswerable, even if disputed. However, for the purposes of s 9 of the Arbitration Act 1996, from which that particular language had been dropped, this court held, applying Ellerine Brothers (Pty) Ltd v Xxxxxx [1982] 2 All ER 737, [1982] 1 WLR 1375, that an unadmitted claim gave rise to a dispute, however unanswerable such a claim might be: Halki Shipping Corporation v Sopex Oils Ltd [1998] 1 WLR 726. It follows that in the arbitration context it is possible and sensible to give to the word “dispute” a broad meaning in the sense that a dispute may readily be found or inferred in the absence of an acceptance of liability, a fortiori because the arbitration process itself is the best place to determine whether or not the claim is admitted or not.”
Secretary of State for Transport. [2005] EWCA Civ 291 (“AMEC”). In referring to The Halki, Xxx X.X. noted that the English Court of Appeal in that case held “that an unadmitted claim gave rise to a dispute, however unanswerable such a claim might be” (AMEC, per Xxx X.X. at para. 66).
