Originally from The American Review of International Arbitration (ARIA)

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The group of contracts doctrine applied in international arbitration practice finds a parallel in the unified contract doctrine applied in the United States. Unified contract is a basic principle of U.S. law that allows multiple instruments or agreements to be read together when they form a larger transaction. And this contract law principle has been applied in the arbitration context to extend arbitral jurisdiction or determine the scope of the arbitration agreement. The conditions of subject matter, persons, and time for applying unified contract are generally applied flexibly because courts focus on substance over form when deciding whether the parties intended to treat the agreements as unified. Group of contracts under international practice applies much like unified contract in that both theories are based on consent. And, given that unified contract is a basic contract law principle that has been applied to the arbitration agreement under U.S. law, if an arbitral tribunal were to apply group of contracts along the same line as a matter of transnational law, this should be enforceable in the United States because it is generally for the tribunal to decide the applicable law, and group of contracts aligns with unified contract under U.S. law. The arbitration practice of the United States at least in this way reflects a liberal international practice.