Commentary on provisions of Act Powers of the court in relation to award Section 11: Procedure on challenge under section 67 of the Arbitration Act 1996
The 1996 Act (sections 82 and 30) provides that an arbitral tribunal has jurisdiction if there is a valid arbitration agreement, the tribunal is properly constituted, and the matters which have been submitted to arbitration are in accordance with the arbitration agreement.
	A party who participates in the arbitration proceedings might object that the arbitral tribunal lacks jurisdiction. The tribunal itself is usually empowered to decide, in the first instance, whether it has jurisdiction (by section 30 of the 1996 Act). Once the tribunal has issued an award, either on its jurisdiction or also on the merits of the dispute, a party can challenge that award before the court under section 67 of the 1996 Act on the basis that the tribunal had no jurisdiction after all.
	In its decision in Dallah v Pakistan (2010), 3 the Supreme Court said that, even where the question of the tribunal’s jurisdiction has been fully debated before the tribunal, a challenge under section 67 of the 1996 Act is a full rehearing before the court.
	Section 11 of this Act amends section 67 of the 1996 Act to confer power for rules of court to provide as follows. Where an application is made under section 67 of the 1996 Act, by a party who took part in the arbitration proceedings, that relates to an objection on which the tribunal has already ruled, then there will generally be no full rehearing before the court. This is a departure from Dallah v Pakistan . Specifically, rules of court will be able to provide that, unless necessary in the interests of justice, there should be no new grounds of objection and no new evidence before the court, unless it was not reasonably possible to put these before the tribunal; and evidence should not be reheard by the court.