In the world of arbitration, where the same cast of characters regularly appears on different stages, the question of who knows what – and who can tell whom – has always been deliciously complex. The Commercial Court’s recent decision in A Corporation v. Firm B and another [2025] EWHC 1092 (Comm) serves up a masterclass in navigating these treacherous waters, with Mr Justice Foxton at the helm delivering a judgment that manages to be both pragmatic and principled.

Two Vessels and Too Many Lawyers

Picture this: A law firm, Firm B, with offices spanning continents, finds itself in the middle of a confidentiality conundrum. The London office had acted for B Corporation in a dispute about Vessel 1, which settled nicely. The firm’s Asia office was representing C Corporation in a separate arbitration about Vessel 2. The plot thickens when we learn that the opposing parties in these arbitrations – A Corporation and D Corporation, respectively – are corporate siblings, having a common beneficial owner.

A Corporation, sensing danger, sought injunctions faster than you can say “information barrier”. A’s concern? That confidential nuggets from the Vessel 1 arbitration might find their way into the Vessel 2 proceedings, giving C

In the pantheon of arbitration appeals, achieving success under sections 67, 68, and 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996 in a single case is rather like scoring a hat-trick in a World Cup final – theoretically possible but rarely achieved. Yet this is precisely what CAFI Commodity & Freight Integrators DMCC (CAFI) managed in its recent victory against GTCS Trading DMCC (GTCS).

The decision in CAFI v. GTCS Trading, EWHC 1350 (Comm) (2025) offers a masterclass in how arbitration can go spectacularly wrong when tribunals tie themselves in jurisdictional knots, and how the Commercial Court can untangle even the most byzantine of procedural tangles. More importantly for commercial parties, it provides welcome clarity on when disputes can span multiple contracts – and why arbitrators cannot simply blind themselves to inconvenient contractual provisions.

A Tale of Two Contracts (and Some Sanctions)

As so many modern commercial disputes do, our story begins with the inconvenient incursion of geopolitics upon the noble pursuit of profit.

GTCS agreed to sell CAFI 28,000 metric tonnes of Russian milling wheat at a rate of US$465 per tonne under a contract concluded in March 2022. The timing, one might observe, was not ideal. With US sanctions