Tesseract International Pty Ltd v Pascale Construction Pty Ltd

Tesseract International Pty Ltd (Tesseract) sought a determination from the court regarding the applicability of certain statutory provisions to an ongoing commercial arbitration. The dispute concerned whether Part 3 of the *Law Reform Act* and/or Part VIA of the *Civil Liability Act* (collectively, the proportionate liability regimes) applied to the arbitration proceedings being conducted between Tesseract and Pascale Construction Pty Ltd.

The central legal issue before the court was whether these statutory regimes, which deal with proportionate liability and contribution between multiple wrongdoers, could be applied within the context of a commercial arbitration governed by the *Commercial Arbitration Act*. Tesseract contended that the arbitrator had an implied authority to apply these provisions, while the court was asked to determine if such an application was legally permissible.

The court reasoned that the proportionate liability regimes contained essential features that were not amenable to application within arbitration proceedings. Consequently, the court concluded that the arbitrator could not be understood as having an implied authority to permit a partial application of these regimes. The court determined that the question posed for its consideration, namely whether the specified statutory provisions applied to the arbitration, had to be answered in the negative.

Accordingly, the court answered the question of law in the negative, holding that Part 3 of the *Law Reform Act* and/or Part VIA of the *Civil Liability Act* did not apply to the commercial arbitration proceeding.