The English High Court (the “Court“) has refused to enforce an unchallenged arbitral award because doing so would not be in the interests of justice. In the recent case of David Sterling v Miriam Rand and Morris Rand [2019] EWHC 2560 (Ch), the Court was asked to enforce an arbitral award of the London Beth … Read more

In BSG Resources Ltd v Vale SA and others [2019] EWHC 2456 (Comm), the English Commercial Court (the Court) considered five applications concerning an arbitration award dated 4 April 2019 (the Award) which had resulted in an order of the English court for BSGR to pay damages of US$1.247 billion to Vale (the Enforcement Order). … Read more

In K v S [2019] EWHC 2386 (Comm), the English Court (the Court) dismissed a challenge to a London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) arbitral tribunal’s procedural order. The challenge was made on the grounds of serious irregularity under s68 of the Arbitration Act 1996 (the Act) but was dismissed for failing to satisfy any … Read more

In Sternberg Reed Solicitors v Harrison [2019] EWHC 2065 (Ch), the High Court decided that an arbitrator had made an error in law in deciding that he could consider correspondence marked “without prejudice” when deciding costs.  However, correspondence that is impliedly “without prejudice” could be taken into consideration.  Arbitrators usually have broad discretion when considering costs … Read more

In a recent and controversial judgment, the High Court of South Africa set aside an attachment order authorising the attachment of an aircraft owned by the Tanzanian Government in satisfaction of a foreign arbitral award, on the ground that the award “ceased to exist” when it was converted into an order of the courts of … Read more

In the recent case of AIC Limited v. The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, the English High Court revisited the difficult question of whether to exercise its discretion under s103(5) of the Arbitration Act 1996 (the “1996 Act“) to stay enforcement proceedings in England in favour of pending set aside proceedings in a foreign court, … Read more

In Sabbagh v Khoury and others, [2019] EWCA Civ 1219 (available here), the English Court of Appeal partly upheld the injunction granted by the Commercial Court restraining the pursuit of arbitration proceedings seated in Lebanon.  In doing so, the Court of Appeal confirmed the power of English courts to restrain a foreign arbitration on grounds … Read more

In P v D [2019] EWHC 1277 (Comm), the English High Court set aside an arbitral award on the basis that the tribunal had reached a finding of fact on a core issue that had not properly been put to a witness in cross-examination and that the tribunal had based its decision on a case … Read more