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Introduction The courts are often requested to enforce an arbitration agreement by granting a stay of court proceedings. A stay application may be made when a party has commenced court proceedings even though the underlying contract contains an arbitration clause. In considering whether or not to grant a stay, courts in different jurisdictions have adopted different approaches to the standard of review. In England, the House of Lords (now the Supreme Court) adopted a presumptive…

This excerpt originally appeared in the Baker McKenzie International Arbitration Yearbook 2017-2018. The Yearbook comprises reports on arbitration in key jurisdictions around the globe. You can access the Yearbook here. The country chapter “Australia” can be found here. In recent years, the Australian courts have given detailed consideration to the interpretation of arbitration agreements for the purpose of staying court proceedings under Section 7 of the IAA and Article 8 of the UNCITRAL Model Law.…

Perhaps the most high-profile case in the debate over investor-state arbitration in recent years has been the investment treaty claim by Philip Morris against the Australian Government, concerning the introduction of tobacco plain packaging rules. Opponents have relied on the case to highlight the perceived risk of “regulatory chill” caused by the proliferation of “secret courts”, while many proponents had hoped that the case would result in an award that carefully balanced the State’s “right…