Towards a New English Arbitration Act

Abstract

there is a prospect that England may be able to enact a new, more comprehensive and better Arbitration Act within the next few years. The initiative did not come from the Department of Trade and Industry, or from the Departmental Advisory Committee on Arbitration Law (‘the DAC’). The initiative came from Mr. Arthur L. Marriott. It was an imaginative idea. The project, which is already under way, involves the privatised drafting of a new English Arbitration Act. It is funded by a large group of law firms, chambers and institutions including the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. The concept of a privatised venture for the drafting of a new Arbitration Act may strike some as odd. But there is the comfort of a very successful precedent. It goes back to the time of Sir Mackenzie Chalmers, that superb draftsman who was responsible for the drafting of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, the Sale of Goods Act 1893 and the Marine Insurance Act 1906. In Chalmers' book on the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 (not to be confused with the successive editions of his book on Bills of Exchange), Chalmers explained that it was a privatised venture: his instructions came from the Institute of Bankers, and the Associated Chambers of Commerce of London contributed to the financing of the project.1 In quoting this precedent I am not suggesting that the new Arbitration Act will attain the simplicity and precision which were Chalmers' hallmark. That is, however, no reason why we should not make it our objective that the new Act should approximate those standards as far as possible. But before I leave Chalmers, and his enduring work, it is important to remember that he always adhered closely to his principal objective, namely to state the law as he conceived it …