APPENDIX I. The Arbitration Act, 1889 (52 & 53 Vict., c. 49) and COMMERCIAL ARBITRATIONS CHAPTER I THE FIELD OF ENQUIRY WE are concerned with one thing only-a commercial arbitration. Accurately to define such a proceeding is not easy; but it may be sufficiently clear to describe it as a judicial enquiry conducted before a tribunal other than one of the King's Courts, as a result of an arrangement between the parties to a dispute arising out of a commercial transaction, which arrangement either (1) was arrived at without the assistance of, and before any party had had recourse to, the Courts and was recorded in the form of a written contract, or (2) was arrived at after one of the parties had commenced an action and took the form of an order of the Court "made under the general authority of a judge to act on [and deriving its] whole validity and force . . . from, the consent of the parties" 1 (a). 1 Having attempted to define a commercial arbitration as dealt with in this treatise, we must now comment on five other forms of procedure which are at first sight somewhat similar to it but which must be carefully distinguished. First, there are arbitrations held as a result of a verbal agreement between the parties to a dispute. With such (a) The small numerals which are interposed throughout the text correspond with those in Appendix IV, where references to judgments and Statutes are collected for use in practice. Where quotations from the Reports are made they are identical with the original text (except that any italics or footnotes are ours) save where the use of square brackets indicates the contrary. B |