ValkyaEditorial

Tagged “non-signatory”

1 article on non-signatory.

Landmark JudgmentSupreme Court of India

Cox & Kings and the group-of-companies doctrine: a Constitution Bench re-anchors the law of non-signatories

On 6 December 2023 a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in Cox & Kings Ltd v. SAP India Pvt Ltd, affirmed the group-of-companies doctrine as a valid and continuing part of Indian arbitration jurisprudence but re-anchored its legal foundation — moving it away from the textual hook of 'claiming through or under' in Sections 8 and 45, on which Chloro Controls had rested it, and into the consent-based definition of 'party' in Section 2(1)(h) read with Section 7. A close reading of CJI Chandrachud's judgment, the five-factor consent inquiry, the prima facie / final-call division of labour between referral court and tribunal, and what the doctrine looks like in post-Cox & Kings practice.

Valkya Editorial··14 min