Tag: Bias

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Ontario – ISDS award set aside on jurisdictional and bias grounds – #950

In Grace et al v United Mexican States, 2026 ONSC 2104, the Court set aside an arbitral award issued under the NAFTA on the basis that: (i) the tribunal wrongly declined jurisdiction; and (ii) one of the arbitrators had failed to disclose his involvement as counsel for a state in an arbitration involving similar issues, which gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias. This case focused, among other things, on the continuing duty of arbitrators to make disclosure.

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Ontario – Parties must pay arbitrator as part of good faith contractual performance – #937

In Ongko (Boswell) v. Ongko, 2025 ONSC 7235, the applicant was precluded from bringing her set-aside application. She was not only time-barred from doing so because she commenced the application after the statutory 30-day period, but the Court also held that it lacked jurisdiction to set aside an award and to remove an arbitrator for bias where a party fails to comply with the arbitrator challenge requirements of the Arbitration Act, 1991, SO 1991, c 17 and the terms of their arbitration agreement, which provided for a  mandatory challenge process if either party had concerns about the arbitrator’s neutrality. The applicant elected not to proceed with the challenge before the arbitrator after she refused to pay the arbitrator’s fees. She then chose not to participate in the arbitration. The Court made clear that parties must continue to pay the arbitrator’s fees to complete the contractually agreed dispute resolution process. It also found that there was also no procedural unfairness stemming from her own choices.

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