In <span class="news-text_italic-underline">Ropa v Kharis Solutions Ltd [2026] EWHC 259 (Comm)</span>, decided on 9 February 2026, the Circuit Commercial Court granted a declaration under <span class="news-text_italic-underline">The Arbitration Act 1996</span> (the “<span class="news-text_medium">AA 1996</span>”) that the claimant's dispute with the defendant be referred to arbitration. In doing so, the Court determined, amongst other matters, that the mediation provision contained in the parties' dispute resolution clause (“<span class="news-text_medium">DRC</span>”) did not operate as a pre-condition to compulsory arbitration.
The parties had entered into joint venture agreements (“<span class="news-text_medium">JVAs</span>”) incorporating an escalation clause that provided for negotiation, followed by mediation and further stipulated that "[i]f mediation is not successful […] or is unavailable, any outstanding issues will be submitted to […] arbitration". A dispute subsequently arose and the claimant served a notice to arbitrate (“<span class="news-text_medium">NTA</span>”) on the defendant.
In challenging the application, the defendant raised three principal objections: first, that the Part 8 claim form was defective; secondly, that the NTA was itself defective and had been invalidly served; and thirdly, that the DRC did not in fact provide for compulsory arbitration. On this last point, the defendant argued that referral to mediation was a matter of election for either party and that only those disputes which had been referred to mediation could fall within the scope of the arbitration clause.
HHJ Charman accepted that the claim form fell short of the requirements of CPR 8.2 and CPR 62.4, in that it had failed to identify the provision of the AA 1996 relied upon or to set out the question for determination by the Court. However, the judge exercised her discretion under CPR 3.10, applying the overriding objective, to waive those procedural errors, holding that it would not be in the interests of justice to refuse to do so. The judge further held that the NTA had been validly served.
Notwithstanding the poor drafting of the DRC, the judge held that, on a true construction of the clause, all disputes between the parties were to be determined by arbitration. Whilst the literal meaning of the language used was unclear, commercial common sense pointed firmly to that being the parties' intention. To hold otherwise would, for instance, permit a party facing multiple simultaneous disputes to elect between litigation and arbitration on a dispute-by-dispute basis, a result plainly inconsistent with the parties' commercial bargain. The judge further held that the mediation provision was not sufficiently certain to give rise to a binding obligation to mediate prior to commencing arbitration, not least because further agreement between the parties on the applicable process would have been required.
The judge also held that the NTA was valid and effective. Applying the flexible approach endorsed in <span class="news-text_italic-underline">Finmoon Ltd v Baltic Reefers Management Ltd [2012] EWHC 920 (Comm)</span>, he found that the NTA satisfied the requirements of section 14(4) of the AA 1996 by clearly evincing an intention to refer the dispute to arbitration and calling upon the defendant to agree to the appointment of an arbitrator. When read together with the prior correspondence between the parties, the dispute had been identified with sufficient particularity.
<span class="news-text_medium">Case Reference:</span> <span class="news-text_italic-underline">Ropa v Kharis Solutions Ltd [2026] EWHC 259 (Comm)</span> (9 February 2026), HHJ Charman
