FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Kyum Lee, Florian Dessault, Hannah Cobbett and Claire Gonzalez, BDGS Associés
• lawyers remain solely accountable to their client, not to the third-party funder; • only the client (and not the lawyer) can communi - cate information about the case to the third-party funder; and • lawyers should encourage their client to disclose the existence of third-party funding to arbitrators and warn their client about the possible conse - quences of non-disclosure (namely, a conflict of interest issue that may result in nullity of the award). 13.4 Consolidation French law does not provide specific rules regarding the consolidation of separate arbitral proceedings. However, when a judge and an arbitral tribunal, or two arbitral tribunals, are called upon to hear claims that may be heard together, the arbitral tribunal cannot unilaterally decide to dismiss the dispute as it might be considered to be a denial of justice, which is a violation of French international public policy. Furthermore, arbitration rules of an arbitral institution may contain provisions relating to the consolidation of arbitral proceedings. For example, Article 10 of the ICC Rules of Arbitration and Article 15 of the CMAP
Rules of Arbitration both state that the court may, at the request of a party, consolidate two or more arbitra - tions pending under the rules into a single arbitration, where: • the parties have agreed to consolidation; • all the claims in the arbitrations are made under the same arbitration agreement(s); or • the claims in the arbitrations are not made under the same arbitration agreement(s), but the arbitra - tions are between the same parties, the disputes in the arbitrations arise in connection with the same legal relationship and the court finds the arbitration agreements to be compatible. 13.5 Binding of Third Parties Arbitral award does not have res judicata effect with respect to third parties, except where they are bound by the arbitration agreement under certain circum - stances (see 5.7 Jurisdiction Over Third Parties ). Nonetheless, an award may be invoked against third parties, and third parties may rely on the award ( Cour de cassation , Commercial Chamber, 23 January 2007, No 05-19.523; Paris Court of Appeal, 6 February 2014, No 12/14466).
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