Landmark Cases

A determination of the High Court’s jurisdiction to hear a £25m dispute between a Mongolian-Russian mining company and the Kazakhstan government. The Court gave authoritative guidance on the rules by which it will hear and decide cases with international aspects.

Producing the Indian Government’s long-awaited first success in the UK House of Lords, this case determined the law in respect of claims for compound interest. It remains a leading authority in contract law nearly 40 years later.

A multi-level fraud claim for over £150m, in which Zaiwalla & Co represented the London Stock Exchange listed Kazakh paper manufacturer to secure a freezing order against its former owners, which was upheld by the Court of Appeal. The case is now authority for many propositions of law, including the way the Court should deal with cost claim where lawyer incur disproportionate and unreasonable amounts of costs (as the opponents did in this case).

The High Court held, for the first time, that an arbitrator should have stood down from his role because of his apparent bias in favour of the English party. This judgment was recently applied to by the UK Supreme Court in November 2020.

One of the most significant worldwide banking cases of the 2010s, where our client claimed damages of US$300 million arising out of his private bank’s refusal to carry out his instructions, on the basis of an alleged suspicion of money laundering. In granting our client’s appeal, the English Court of Appeal rejected HSBC’s argument that it did not need to prove that its employees did genuinely suspect money laundering – bank’s do not have ‘carte blanche’ to refuse their client’s instructions. Summary judgment for the bank was therefore refused and the matter went to a full trial.

The firm advised the Russian Federation on a successful strategy, based on a novel point of law not considered by the existing legal team, to apply in The Hague to set aside two US$50 billion international arbitration awards in favour of former Yukos shareholders.

Since the early 1980s Zaiwalla & Co has handled over 1000 arbitrations arising out of vessel charters to transport foodstuffs to India during the food shortage between 1982-94. The firm’s tenacious defence of these claims saved the Indian Government over US$80 million at a time when foreign capital reserves were scarce.

The High Court decided that even though the parties had agreed to arbitrate any disputes in London, Indian law should apply to the arbitration procedure. This result was very beneficial to overseas parties fighting cases in London arbitrations.

Zaiwalla & Co won its argument that an arbitration clause was valid. The Court decided that an agreement which stated that “the parties could decide to submit any dispute between them to an arbiter of their choice in London” was a valid arbitration agreement. This is now a significant authority for the regular disputes between parties about whether they have even agreed to arbitrate.