Legal experts are advising corporations to refine arbitration clauses in their contracts to avoid costly jurisdictional disputes. Ambiguous language regarding the seat and venue of arbitration can inflate legal expenses by at least 20% and cause significant delays, as parties often resort to litigation just to establish which court holds authority. With nearly 290,000 arbitration-related cases currently pending in Indian courts, the reliance on generic boilerplate language remains a major hurdle. Lawyers emphasize that failing to clearly distinguish between the legal seat and the physical hearing venue leads to forum-shopping and complex cross-border complications. While recent Supreme Court rulings have attempted to clarify the distinction between seat and venue, practitioners warn that the continued use of standardized, non-specific contract templates will likely perpetuate these procedural challenges as transaction volumes and complexity increase.
Source : Livemint
Photo : Livemint
