In April 2025, we reported on the Supreme Court of Victoria’s decision in Oil Basins Limited vs Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd [2025] VSC 34 (here), where the Supreme Court granted a stay of proceedings pursuant to section 7 of the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth) (IAA).

In Oil Basins Limited v Esso Australia Resources [2026] VSCA 6, the Court of Appeal considered an appeal of the primary judge’s findings in respect of a number of points of jurisdiction, including whether the primary judge erred in granting a stay under the IAA without determining whether the disputes in question fell within the scope of the arbitration agreement and whether the arbitration agreement was inoperative, thereby rendering it null and void under the IAA.

Oil Basins advanced a number of arguments in favour of why the Court should make a fulsome and final determination as to whether the IAA applied to effect a stay to arbitration of all the issues in dispute and, in the alternative, why the arbitration agreement was inoperative and therefore null and void. The Court of Appeal ultimately affirmed the primary judge’s decision, finding that all points of jurisdiction were matters for an arbitral tribunal to determine, provided that the Court had formed a general view that the dispute fell within the scope of the arbitration agreement (the “light touch” approach), thereby enlivening section 7 of the IAA.

This decision is another example of the judiciary’s willingness not to interfere with an arbitral tribunal’s ability to rule on its own jurisdiction.

The Court of Appeal decision is available here.