Extending an Arbitration Agreement to a Non-Signatory Party: An Appraisal of the Law and Practice in Tanzania in Comparison with Selected Countries

Abstract

Under Tanzanian contract and arbitration laws, only a party to an arbitration agreement can be bound by such an arbitration agreement because of privity of contract and express consent to be bound by or benefit from a contract or arbitration agreement. While certain jurisdictions bind non-signatories to arbitration agreements, others retain the rigid approach requiring only signatories to be bound by arbitration agreements. As this article contends, in Tanzania, where the law is not clear on whether or not a non-signatory should be generally bound by an arbitration agreement, courts and arbitral tribunals, when confronted with the issue of whether a non-signatory can be bound by an arbitration agreement, they should look to the position in jurisdictions applying the SLE doctrine, when dealing with public corporations, or to the GOC doctrine, when dealing with private corporations.