[Kushagra Jain and Vasundhara Sharan are 4th-year law students at Symbiosis Law School, Noida] The rapid globalization and growing institutionalization of international commercial disputes has led to a plethora of international and national laws, rules, and commentary. Reference to arbitration originates from the contours of the arbitration agreement and maintains privity of contract, consent by...
VTB Capital v Nutritek: The Corporate Veil and the Consequences of Piercing it
It may be surprising that the highest court in the United Kingdom decides, in 2013, to reserve for future decision the question whether and when the corporate veil can be pierced. It has been taken for granted for many years that a court may pierce the corporate veil and—atleast in this jurisdiction—the courts have been ready to do so on a wide range of grounds. In this background, Mr...
Service of Notice on Parties to an Indian Arbitration
In Benarsi Krishna v Karmayogi Shelters, the Supreme Court has decided that the word “party” in section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, does not include a party’s agent. This, it is respectfully submitted, is incorrect or, at best, too widely stated. The important practical consequence of this proposition is that the period of limitation does not begin to run from the date of...
Ostensible Authority and Estoppel
The Privy Council in Kelly v. Fraser, [2012] UKPC 25, recently revisited the issue of whether an agent can be said to have ostensible authority on the basis of his own representations. Mr. Fraser, the Respondent, became the CEO of Island Life Insurance Company on 1st February, 2000, and shortly after that became a member of the Salaried Staff Pension Plan (“SSP”) of the company. The SSP was...
The Implied Authority of a Managing Director
Does a managing director have implied authority to suspend the Chairman of the board of directors? This is a question the Court of Appeal considered in its recent judgment in James Butler v John Smith. The leading judgment was given by Arden LJ. The case is significant because it dealt not with the ostensible authority of an MD in relation to a third party (on which there is a plethora of...
The Red Jaguar: Apparent Authority and Tortious Liability
Ironically, many significant propositions in private law have been advanced in the course of a court’s attempt to unravel a transaction or scheme engineered by a rogue with considerable ingenuity – so much so that judges not infrequently ask the question “which of two innocent parties should bear the loss caused by a rogue” (See, for example, Re Jones [1926] All ER Rep 36). The immediate context...
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