International Commercial Arbitration - India

With the advent of globalisation, the world has become a global village. Business organisations have expanded themselves beyond borders and hence, there has been a real time increase in cross-border transactions. Agreements and contracts executed between commercial organisations many a times go ugly, thus, giving rise to disputes which are not within the confines of municipal law of a particular country, because the transactions are ‘cross-border’ in nature. Adjudication of cross-border business disputes demand expertise of a different sort, especially when the organisations in dispute hail from nations following different legal systems, as for example common law system and civil law system. In situations like these, redressal of disputes qua 'arbitration' is the most plausible and non-arbitrary solution. If India is to progress in the area of International Commercial Arbitration, the law as laid down by the Parliament and the interpretation given to it by the Apex Court, must coincide. If such a thing doesn’t happen, cross-border investments (FDI) in India will continue to decline, with the countries world over doubting our international integrity, finding India, not “fine-tuning” but rather “musical-chairing” with the ‘interpretative skills’ in regards to legislation enacted; to arbitrarily promote what suits best to its national entities. That said, what else needs to be seen is that, there is no re-circulation back to the days of the 1940 Act, in regards to which the Supreme Court once observed, ‘let not arbitral proceedings be done in a way that will make the lawyers laugh and legal philosophers weep’.