In Brief
WAPCOS Ltd sought to challenge a High Court order appointing an arbitrator in a dispute with the Salma Dam Joint Venture (SDJV) over a dam construction project in Afghanistan. The Supreme Court held that when the parties executed an Amendment of Agreement (AoA) in 2015, they expressly agreed that 'no arbitration' would be available for settlement of claims and that pending claims would be 'buried'. This amendment effectively superseded the arbitration clause in the original 2006 contract. Since the arbitration agreement did not subsist when the arbitration petition was filed in 2016, the petition was not maintainable. The Court allowed the appeals and set aside the High Court's order appointing the arbitrator.
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