Inghams Enterprises Pty Ltd v Southern Cross Farms Australia Pty Ltd

Inghams Enterprises Pty Ltd applied for leave to appeal an arbitral award made in favour of Southern Cross Farms Australia Pty Ltd. The dispute concerned the interpretation and payment obligations under SCF Growing Agreements for the raising of free-range chickens. The Arbitrator had found that Inghams had breached its payment obligations by failing to pay a bonus component of the fee and awarded substantial sums to SCF.

The court was required to determine whether to grant leave to appeal under section 34A of the Commercial Arbitration Act (CAA). Specifically, the court had to consider whether the parties had agreed that an appeal could be made under section 34A, whether the questions posed by Inghams were questions of law that the Arbitrator had been asked to determine, and whether the Arbitrator's decision was "obviously wrong" or a question of general public importance.

The court refused the application for leave to appeal. It held that the SCF Growing Agreements did not contain the requisite agreement for an appeal to be made under section 34A of the CAA, despite contemplating curial intervention. Furthermore, while one of the questions posed by Inghams was a question of law, the other was not. Crucially, Inghams failed to establish that the Arbitrator's decision was "obviously wrong," which is a criterion for granting leave to appeal under section 34A(3)(c)(i) of the CAA. The court noted that the questions raised concerned the construction of bespoke contractual arrangements and were not of general public importance.