Dispute, controversy, difference or claim

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Beaming in live from the international arbitration centre, this fabulous model arbitration clause:

“Any dispute, controversy, difference or claim arising out of, relating to or having any connection with this contract, including the existence, validity, interpretation, performance, breach or termination thereof or any dispute regarding non-contractual obligations arising out of or relating to it shall be referred to and finally resolved by arbitration administered by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) ...”

As you can imagine it continues in this vein for a few hundred more words but the above is enough to pick out a couple of succulent legalistic delicacies.

First, the timidity — absurdity, really — with which topics being suitable for arbitration are framed. You would think “dispute” really ought to do it: any contretemps grave enough to justify arbitration ought to make it over the bar to count as one of those. But a mere controversy?

I write out of concern for the personal well-being of those given to provoking people. Like the JC, who is not above airing his controversial views about legal contracts, especially once the bell rings and the children are let out of school and pile into the local. He’s doing it now, as a matter of fact. But having done so, he would not expect to be hauled before an arbitral committee just to be put straight on the matter.

Especially if, secondly, the contract didn’t exist in the first place. There is something of a paradox here. For if I deny the assertion that I am bound by your ridiculous contract, even with sufficient a degree of agitation for it to count as a dispute