Key takeaway
The Commercial Court’s decision in Integra Petrochemicals Europe AG v BASF SE confirms that parties cannot use foreign proceedings or the New York Convention to mount a collateral attack on an English-seated arbitration award once the challenge routes under the Arbitration Act 1996 have been exhausted or missed. Article V of the New York Convention operates as a defence to enforcement, not as a free-standing mechanism to pre-emptively challenge an award.
What was the background to Integra Petrochemicals v BASF?
The dispute arose from negotiations in September 2021 in which Integra approached BASF to purchase 36,000 metric tonnes of bio methanol for onward sale on back-to-back terms. Integra's position was that those negotiations produced a binding agreement, evidenced by its standard trade confirmation sent to BASF in November 2021, governed by English law and subject to London arbitration. BASF maintained that no binding contract had been concluded.
