Consolidation Of Arbitration Proceedings – Global Infonet v. Lenovo And Ors.

The Delhi High Court's recent judgment in Global Infonet v. Lenovo and Ors.¹ ("Global Infonet") is significant in the context of consolidation of arbitration proceedings. A Single Judge of the High Court allowed an application filed under Section 8 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ("1996 Act") seeking reference to arbitration, proceedings that technically arose out of three separate and distinct arbitration agreements between different parties.

The Court observed that all three arbitration agreements were part of three underlying distribution agreements which made up a single economic transaction between multiple parties. The Court thus did two things: (a) following now settled law, it rejected objections that an application for reference to arbitration could not be filed in a Suit which had parties who were not signatories to all the arbitration agreements; and (b) it effectively consolidated potentially three arbitration proceedings into one single