Petrotrin to challenge $74m arbitration award

PETROTRIN has another opportunity to resist the enforcement of a $74 million arbitration award to a contractor.

In a recent decision, Justices of Appeal Peter Rajkumar and James Aboud allowed Petrotrin’s appeal of a judge’s decision to dismiss its application to have an arbitration award set aside.

In their decision, the judges said Justice Ricky Rahim should have first considered Petrotrin’s application before proceeding to Pioneer Construction’s application to have the arbitration award enforced.

Petrotrin, which was represented by attorneys Deborah Peake, SC, and Ravi Heffes-Doon, had complained that Rahim misunderstood its application, failed to appreciate its pleadings and provided no analysis when he delivered his oral decision in March.

Peake said the judge was wrong on several counts and should have heard Petrotrin’s arguments for setting aside Pioneer’s application.

Rahim eventually recused himself from the matter after Petrotrin’s attorneys complained that his decision disclosed apparent bias.

In 2020, Pioneer received two awards from the arbitrator against Petrotrin. Pioneer filed enforcement proceedings, but Petrotrin in turn filed a claim, under the Arbitration Act to have the awards set aside, and asked for an injunction staying the awards pending the hearing and determination of its complaint.

Petrotrin argued that there was an error in law and the arbitrator misconducted himself and reached conclusions which no reasonable arbitrator could do.

In his decision, Rahim held that Petrotrin’s pleadings of misconduct were not set out in its case, and a court asked to review the decision of an inferior body (the arbitrator) should not lightly grant a stay unless the applicant demonstrated he had a good prospect of success to set aside the order.

He also found that Petrotrin did not challenge the awards until more than a month after Pioneer made its first claim for enforcement, and its case to have the two awards set aside was “only brought in an attempt to delay the first claim and by extension the liquidation of the judgment or the enforcement of the judgment.”

He also added, “The court finds that in all of the circumstances it is not satisfied that Petrotrin is not attempting to achieve a tactical delay.”

Rahim also took into account the pandemic and the court’s caseload, adding that the hearing of the claim with minimal delay was remote and “it would mean that Pioneer may be deprived of the fruits of its award for an additional period.”

Rajkumar, who held that Rahim was “plainly wrong” to dismiss Petrotrin’s application, said the judge failed to recognise that an arbitration award could be set aside if grounds for doing so had been demonstrated.

He also said the judge did not consider whether the arbitration awards were capable of standing at all, based on the arguments raised in Petrotrin’s claims.

With Rahim having recused himself, Rajkumar said it would be a waste of resources to send stay applications back for another judge to hear. So, in allowing Petrotrin’s appeal, the judges granted the stay of Pioneer’s claim to enforce the arbitrator award until Petrotrin’s application to set aside the awards was determined.

The Appeal Court also ordered the matters reassigned and heard expeditiously by a new judge.

Pioneer Constrtuction was represented by Neal Bisnath and Ravi Nanga.