In Brief
Duro Felguera, a Spanish company, contracted with Gangavaram Port Limited to supply and install bulk material handling systems. The work was split into five separate packages (one for Duro Felguera, four for its Indian subsidiary FGI) and a corporate guarantee. Each contract contained an independent arbitration clause. When disputes arose, GPL sought a single arbitral tribunal for all disputes, while the contractors sought separate tribunals for each package. The Supreme Court held that despite the works being interconnected, the parties' conscious decision to split the original tender into five distinct contracts with separate arbitration clauses required multiple arbitral tribunals—two for international commercial arbitration and four for domestic arbitration—governed by the amended Section 11(6A) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996."
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