Foreign, domestic arbitration split up

In a case which involved five interconnected contracts between a foreign firm, its Indian subsidiary and a ports company, the Supreme Court last week split them and appointed ar bi tr al tribunals for the domestic and foreign issues separately. In this case, Duro Fe lgu era SA vs Gang a va ram Port Ltd, the Spanish company and its subsidiary, Fe lgu era G ru as India Ltd, under took expansion projects of the port near V isak ha pat nam but the agreement fell through and the contracts were cancelled by the port company leading to arbitration. Gang ava ram wanted to constitute a single ar bi tr al tribunal consisting of three members by a composite reference for adjudication of all the disputes between the parties. It argued that the appointment of a single ar bi tr al tribunal will avoid conflicting awards, huge wastage of time and expense. On the other hand, the Spanish company cont ended that there were several contract packages with special conditions and arbitration clause sand its Indian arm was not a party in all of them. Therefore the question arose whether there should be one tribunal or separate ones, separating international commercial arbitration and domestic arbitration. The Supreme Court appointed president of the tribunal which will act as international commercial arbitration tribunal in some contracts and domestic tribunal in there st, depending upon the contracts.