Peter Ashford, Solicitor, Arbitrator and Mediator discusses current topics in arbitration and mediation In the absence of any right of appeal awards are increasingly challenged on the basis of serious irregularity, under section 68 of the Arbitration Act 1996.  In order to challenge an award under section 68, the irregularity has to be one which has caused or will cause substantial injustice to the applicant, and the irregularity has to be of a certain kind.  These are set out in section 68(2), and include: Failure by the arbitrator to comply with the general duties under section 33 of the 1996 Act. Failure to deal with all the issues that were put to the arbitrator. Section 33 provides that the tribunal is under a duty to act fairly and impartially as between the parties.  The tribunal must give each party a reasonable opportunity to put its case and to respond to its opponent's case. In Arduina Holdings BV v Celtic Resources Holdings plc, [2006] the court considered the extent to which a tribunal may have failed to properly evaluate evidence as a basis for a complaint under section 68: "The assertion that the arbitrator failed to take any or proper consider (sic) of the evidence could in an exceptional case, give rise to a challenge under section 68, based on the general duty of an arbitrator under section 33 if, for example, an arbitrator genuinely overlooked evidence that really mattered, or got the wrong end of the stick in misunderstanding it.