Landmark Cases

Our team acted for a Bulgarian gas distributor in arbitration disputes with Russian energy giant Gazprom, in relation to Gazprom’s decision to stop supplying natural gas to Overgas in January 2016. Gazprom claimed that Overgas owed them approximately $105m under this arrangement, while Overgas claimed that Gazprom had acted in breach of EU and Bulgarian competition law and in breach of contract. We achieved a significant confidential settlement for our client.

Known as ‘the arbitration case of the decade’, Zaiwalla & Co won its client’s case in the Court of Appeal arguing that an arbitration agreement that purported to restrict the appointment of arbitrators to members of a single religious denomination was void by reason of anti-discrimination legislation applicable to employment rights.

Following a series of ground-breaking victories whereby Zaiwalla & Co overturned international sanctions that had been imposed against Bank Mellat by the European Council and the UK Government, we acted for the Bank in its subsequent claim for over US$4 billion in damages and we secured a significant confidential settlement from the UK Treasury.

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.