The court says this is a dangerous limitation, since this very area of connection trapped the eventual arbitrator - Clarke. He is a salaried partner in a firm that does work for Sainsbury's Developments Ltd, but this was about Homebase Ltd. Since his firm had no work for Homebase, he felt there was no conflict of interest. He recognised a connection of sorts, but said that such a distant relationship provided no real danger of bias. After all, the two companies in the Sainsbury's group have different functions, different property teams and different head offices.
Trouble is, there is a bit of a campaign going on in the courts at the moment.
Parties are likely to turn nasty if there is any sign of partiality or perceived connection, and one or two judges have had the spotlight turned on them. That said, if an arbitrator has their nest feathered by one side, it doesn't count for anything if they can still be even-handed. The real test is what the unconnected but reasonable observer would make of the connections. When the judge weighed up all the circumstances, he couldn't criticise Clarke personally, but still removed him as arbitrator. The judge stood as the reasonable bystander and felt it appeared too generous to say that Homebase and Sainsbury's were wholly disassociated.