200 NEWSLETTER 2021 In August, 2016, A accepted another appointment in a third arbitration between Transocean and another insurer, but did not disclose this appointment to Halliburton, either. On 10 November 2016, before the evidentiary hearing, Halliburton discovered A’s subsequent appointments in the two other arbitrations relating to the Deepwater Horizon incident. On 21 December 2016, Halliburton asked the English court to remove and replace the chair under section 24 of English Arbitration Act 1996 (“Arbitration Act”), due to the existence of circumstances giving rise to justifiable doubts as to the chair’s impartiality. On 3 February 2017, the court dismissed the challenge, but granted permission to appeal. In April, 2018, the Court of Appeal dismissed Halliburton’s appeal on the grounds that mere non-disclosure was not sufficient to give rise to an inference of apparent bias. Halliburton appealed to the Supreme Court. On November 27, 2020, the UK Supreme Court handed down its judgment in Halliburton Company v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd.4 and unanimously dismissed the appeal. Supreme Court’s Judgment The Supreme Court was asked to address the following questions: (i) whether there is a freestanding legal duty of disclosure on arbitrators under English law, and (ii) whether overlapping references give rise to an appearance of bias. Concerning the first question, the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal had been correct to hold that arbitrators have a legal duty to make disclosure of facts and circumstances that would, or might reasonably, give rise to the appearance of bias. The Supreme Court provided that this legal duty is a part of the statutory duties of an arbitrator to act fairly and impartially under section 33 of the Arbitration Act. According to the Supreme Court, this inference is also consistent with the best practice set out in the International Bar Association (IBA) Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International 4 For Halliburton Company v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd [2020] UKSC 48, please refer to https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2018-0100-judgment.pdf.
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