- (1.) GREAT Offshore Limited has filed a petition under section 11 (5) ( (6) (9) and (12) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 whereby the applicant seeks the appointment of a sole arbitrator. The applicant, Great Offshore Ltd. , submits that it has entered into a charter party agreement with the respondent, Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction company. The charter party agreement ("cpa") contains an arbitration clause. Relying on this clause, the applicant has asked this Court to appoint an arbitrator to resolve the dispute. The respondent, however, contends that the two parties had not progressed beyond the stage of negotiation and that there is no concluded contract between them. Therefore, it is argued that there is no question of referring the dispute to arbitration.
(2.) BRIEF facts which are relevant to dispose of this arbitration petition are recapitulated below. The charter party agreement in dispute marks the second time the parties have done business with each other. The first time was in 2004. In March of that year, the respondent entered into a contract with the Oil and Natural gas Corporation Limited ("ongc") to carry out construction work on ONGC's installations at Bombay High. On 26th october, 2004, the applicant and the respondent entered into a charter party agreement. Under this prior agreement, the respondent hired a vessel combination from the applicant. The respondent required a specialized offshore construction barge known as a "gal Constructor. " It also required an anchor handling tug, named "aht Malaviya Five. " The AHT Malaviya is used in combination with the Gal Constructor. I shall refer to the Gal Constructor and the AHT Malaviya as the "vessel combination. " The respondent needed this combination to execute offshore work for ONGC. This work was part of ONGC's rsppm project, Phase I. The first phase was completed in november 2004.
(3.) IN this case, the controversy is confined to the alleged agreement relating to the second phase of ONGC's project. In this arbitration petition, I need to decide whether the parties have entered into a valid contract containing an arbitration clause. To this end, it has become imperative to review the relevant correspondence between them. Only then will I be able to arrive at a conclusion as to whether there was a concluded contract or whether the parties had never progressed beyond the stage of negotiation.;