<center><span class="news-text_medium">Court:</span> County Court (Wandsworth)</center>
<center><span class="news-text_medium">Judgment Date:</span> 22 September 2026</center>
The dispute arose under a commercial lease containing a rent review mechanism. Unless the parties agreed otherwise, the appointed surveyor would act as an arbitrator under the Arbitration Act 1996. After an arbitrator had been appointed, the tenant, Mr Paskaran, brought County Court proceedings seeking a determination of the rent and a declaration that the arbitration clause was inoperative. The landlord, Blue Bricks London Limited, applied to strike out the rent review elements of the claim or, alternatively, to stay them under section 9 of the Act.
The District Judge refused the stay. He held that, by asking the court primarily to strike out part of the claim and seeking a stay only in the alternative, the landlord had taken a “step in the proceedings” that barred its stay application under section 9(3). He indicated that, but for that conclusion, he would have granted a stay because nothing before him suggested that the arbitration agreement was null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed.
On appeal, HHJ Marquand held that the District Judge had placed too much weight on the order in which the remedies were requested. The question was whether, assessed objectively in the context known to both parties, the landlord’s conduct showed an election to abandon arbitration in favour of a court determination. An application invoking the court’s jurisdiction may amount to a step in the proceedings, but an express request or reservation of the right to seek a stay is material to that assessment. There is no automatic rule that a strike-out application either preserves or forfeits the right to a stay.
Here, the landlord’s application expressly sought a stay in the alternative and its challenge to the tenant’s pleading was directed at allowing the arbitration to continue. HHJ Marquand concluded that the landlord had not abandoned arbitration. He allowed the appeal, holding that the application was not a disqualifying step under section 9(3). The judgment does not itself record a final order granting the stay.
A party seeking to preserve an arbitration stay should state that intention clearly when taking any step in litigation. The court will examine the party’s conduct as a whole, rather than treating the order of remedies in an application as decisive.
<span class="news-text_medium">Case:</span> <span class="news-text_italic-underline">Paskaran v Blue Bricks London Ltd [2026] EWCC 57</span>, County Court at Wandsworth, 22 September 2026 (HHJ Marquand)
