Unifying competing dispute resolution processes into a one-stop arbitration

Whether a court should stay or alternatively refuse to stay proceedings in the court to avoid or minimise a multiplicity of proceedings - arbitral and curial - that focus on essentially the same or a related cluster of disputes, arises from time to time in domestic and international commercial arbitration situations. The parties generally want their dispute to be consolidated in the one adjudication. As a party to an arbitration agreement, this one-stop adjudication will be achieved by way of arbitration. This paper examines the responses of the courts and legislatures to this and related issues in common law jurisdictions.