Supreme Court supports arbitration agreements

The Supreme Court has clarified New Zealand's arbitration jurisprudence by ruling that parties generally cannot avoid promises to arbitrate by seeking High Court summary judgment instead.

The context

Zurich Australian Insurance v Cognition Education [2014] NZSC 188, delivered on 19 December, is the Supreme Court's third arbitration decision and its second this year.

In June, the Court had set aside an arbitration award on the basis that the parties had invalidated their arbitration agreement through a drafting error. This raised fears in some quarters that the Court may be inclining towards a technical, or even paternalistic, approach to supporting arbitration. Those fears have been mollified in Zurich v Cognition.