that "generally the fact that an arbitrator may be involved in an arbitration between party A and party B, whose subject matter is identical to that in an arbitration between Party B and party C does not preclude him or her form sitting on both tribunals." • In summary Popplewell J concluded that (1) there was nothing in M's appointments in References 2 and 3 which gave rise to an appearance of bias; and (2) given his conclusion there was no bias the Judge held that there was nothing to disclose; (3) even if disclosure ought to have been made, the failure to do so did not give rise to a real possibility of apparent bias. Halliburton appealed the High Court's decision. Results of the Abitration Proceedings Subsequent to the High Court Judgement but prior to the appeal, the two other arbitrations in which M was appointed were decided in in Chubb's favour on the preliminary issues of policy construction and so the Tribunal was not required to consider any issues relating to the reasonableness of the settlement. The Tribunal in the Halliburton arbitration issued the Final Partial Award in Chubb's favour. In the "Separate Observations" of N's judgment, however, he stated that was unable to join in the award as a result of his "profound disquiet about the arbitration's fairness".
Court of Appeal (CA) Decision The appeal was heard by Sir Geoffrey Vos C, Simon and Hamblen LJJ and their decision was unanimous. In summary: (1) Acceptance of appointment: The CA agreed with Popplewell J that the mere fact that an arbitrator accepts appointments in multiple references concerning the same or overlapping subject matter with only one common party does not in itself give rise to an appearance of bias. They agreed with Dyson LJ in the Court of Appeal decision in AMEC Capital Projects Ltd v Whitefriars City Estates Ltd. [2005] 1 WLR 723 that “[s]omething more is required” and that must be “something of substance”. (2) Non-disclosure: The CA noted that while the 1996 Act sets out no requirements in relation to disclosure, many institutional rules governing arbitration include provisions requiring disclosure to be made of facts or circumstances which may give rise to justifiable doubts as to an arbitrator's impartiality. Under the common law, judges are also required to disclose facts or circumstances which would or might provide the basis for a reasonable apprehension of lack of impartiality and the CA held that the same approach applies to arbitral tribunals. The CA referred to the Privy Council's recent decision in Wael Almazeedi v Michael Penner and Stuart Sybermsa [2018] UKPC 3 and said it "supports the importance of disclosure" at an early stage as set out in the previous body of authorities. Hamblen LJJ said that "These authorities explain the important practical advantages of giving disclosure and addressing any issues which may arise at the outset. They also show that in borderline cases disclosure should be given - disclosure should be given of circumstances which would or might lead the fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, to conclude that there was a real possibility that the tribunal was biased." (Halliburton, para 65) In summary, the CA held that the present position under English law is that disclosure