AKBITKATIONS AND AWARDS 231 



(c) Corruption or misconduct on the part of the arbitrator, 

 or a secret interest in the matters referred, or bias ; 



(d) Fraudulent concealment of evidence by one of the 

 parties ; 



(e) That there has been a mistake in law or fact. 

 Uncertainty and irregularity have already been dealt with 



(see 30 (e), supra), but some of the other grounds for setting 

 aside the award must be considered. 



35. Corruption, misconduct or Mas. It is provided by the 

 Arbitration Act, 1889, 11 (2), that where an arbitrator or 

 umpire has misconducted himself or an arbitration or award 

 has been improperly procured, the Court may set the award 

 aside. A party to a reference is thus protected from injury 

 which might be done him by a biased arbitrator. 



It is hardly necessary to go at any great length into the 

 obvious rule that the Court will set aside an award on the 

 ground of misconduct on the part of the arbitrator, or 

 irregularity in the conduct of the proceedings. If the reader 

 is called upon at any time to enumerate the reasons which 

 will induce the Court to upset an award on these grounds or 

 any of them, it is conceived that he need only consider what 

 is fair play in the conduct of a judicial proceeding. He should 

 put himself into the position of an arbitrator who is about to 

 hold a reference. In that capacity he would show no bias 

 towards either side ; he would refrain during the hearing from 

 showing any leaning towards one side or the other, and he 

 would decide the issue upon the evidence adduced before him, 

 and without any regard to any preconceived opinion which he 

 may have formed as to the rights and wrongs of the dispute. 

 At the present day, actual corruption or fraud is scarcely ever 

 put forward as a ground for having an award set aside, but, as 

 Mr. Redman points out, there may be ample misconduct in a 

 legal sense when there is no moral culpability. (See further as 

 to bias 13, 14, supra.) 



36. Statement of special case. By the Arbitration Act, 

 1889, s. 19, any referee, arbitrator, or umpire may at any 

 stage of the proceedings under a reference, and shall if so 

 directed by the Court or a judge, state in the form of a special 

 case for the opinion of the Court any question of law arising 

 in the course of the reference. 



