Procedural Order in Case 14338

Procedural Order in Case 18175

Procedural Order in Case 18864

The ICC Arbitration Rules place an obligation on arbitral tribunals to manage proceedings effectively. Bifurcating the proceedings, as explicitly mentioned in Appendix IV, entitled ‘Case Management Techniques’, is one of the measures available for this purpose. The reported procedural orders record arbitrators’ decisions on three applications for bifurcation, two of which were accepted and the third rejected. Bifurcation was allowed where the issues to be decided on a preliminary basis – the validity of a contractual document alleged to have settled some of the parties’ claims in one case, and jurisdiction and admissibility in the other case – could be easily separated from the rest of the dispute, but it was refused where a preliminary ruling on jurisdiction would require consideration also to be given to the merits of the case. In the latter case, bifurcation would be counterproductive and procure no economic advantage.

Readers are reminded that a procedural order is a decision made by a particular arbitral tribunal in the exercise of its duties under the ICC Arbitration Rules in light of the circumstances of the case. Unlike awards, procedural orders are not subject to scrutiny by the ICC International Court of Arbitration.

For the purpose of publication, the procedural decisions reproduced here have been redacted so as to remove names of parties and other details not indispensable for their intelligibility. The decisions are reproduced in their original language. The footnotes form part of the original texts, unless otherwise stated, but have been renumbered in a continuous sequence.