Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company Ltd v Sogex (International) Ltd

• Jurisdiction: Jersey
• Court: Royal Court
• Judge: (Crill, Deputy Bailiff and Jurats Perrée and Picot):
• Judgment Date: 11 February 1982
• Date: 11 February 1982

ROYAL COURT

(Crill, Deputy Bailiff and Jurats Perre and Picot):

F.C. Hamon for the plaintiff;

M.M.G. Voisin for the defendant.

Arbitrationagreement of referenceconflict of lawsagreement specifying applicability of "laws of England" to agreement does not oust procedural laws of Jersey in proceedings on agreement

Arbitrationstay of proceedingsno step after appearancestep after appearance no bar to stay of proceedings if necessary to protect defendant's position against possibility of summary judgment under Royal Court Rules 1968, r.6/8(2)

Conflict of Lawscontractsproper law of contractarbitration agreement specifying applicability of "laws of England" to agreement does not oust procedural laws of Jersey in proceedings on agreement

CRILL, DEPUTY BAILIFF:The plaintiff in this action is a manufacturing firm from Durham, and the defendant is a company incorporated according to the laws of this Island. It is the employer under three contracts between it and the plaintiff company. It is also part of an international organisation which we are told consists, inter alia, of Sogex United Kingdom Limited, which is a United Kingdom service contract company, and Sogex Arabia Incorporated, which we understand was incorporated after the contract was entered into. We were told that had Sogex Arabia Incorporated been in existence before the contracts were entered into that it would have been with that company rather than the Jersey incorporated company, the defendant, and the plaintiff that the contracts would have been concluded. Be that as it may, at the time the contracts were concluded, the Jersey company was chosen because of some export payment by Her Majesty's Government under the E.C.G.D. arrangements, but that is not relevant to this case. There are three contracts. The first one, and the main one, is what we have been told we should call the Main Fabrication Contract; the second one is called the Pipe Bridge Construction Contract, and it contains references in it which links it with the general provisions of the first contract; and the third contract is the Erection contract. All three relate to the building of a large desalination plant in Saudi Arabia. All three contracts contain, either directly or by cross reference between contract 1 and contract 2, two main important clauses. The first clause relates to arbitration and that is to be found in clause 55 in contract 1 which is as follows:

"If any dispute or difference shall arise between the...