Commercial Disputes Weekly – Issue 23711 March 2025

Arbitration
The Republic of Kazakhstan (“Kazakhstan”) has successfully challenged an arbitration award where the tribunal had failed to deal with a key issue that it had raised in relation to the losses arising from its breach of a management agreement. Kazakhstan had asserted that its breach of the agreement had not caused WWM’s losses because the management agreement would have been terminated in any event due to WWM’s non-payment and so the investments would have been lost anyway. This would have provided a complete defence to the claim, rather than the approx. US$55m awarded to WWM by the tribunal. The issue had been argued at the hearing but was not referred to in the award. The Commercial Court upheld Kazakhstan’s challenge to the UNCITRAL award on the basis that there was a serious irregularity that had caused substantial injustice to Kazakhstan, as per section 68 of the English Arbitration Act 1996.
Republic of Kazakhstan v World Wide Minerals Ltd and others [2025] EWHC 452 (Comm), 28 February 2025

Insurance
The Court of Appeal provided key guidance on the Insurance Act 2015 in relation to warranties and representations and the correct categorisation of information provided by the assured. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal brought by insurers and held that there was no indemnity under the policy due to breach of various terms relating to whether certain trade terms were used in the warehousing agreement between the parties. The clauses were future warranties that regulated the conduct of the assured during the policy term and conditions precedent to liability of the insurers under the policy. The categorisation of the terms as warranties meant that they were dealt with under sections 9-11 of the Act, instead of the provisions relating to fair presentation of risk.
Lonham Group Ltd v Scotbeef Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 203, 5 March 2025

Maritime
The Admiralty Court has given a salvage award of £90,000 to a tug that assisted a grounded tanker. The tanker owners were in breach of a jurisdiction clause in the “Certificate of Safe Delivery” that was signed by the master once the salvage services were completed. That certificate had provided for any dispute as to salvage services to be dealt with in London, but the tanker owners had commenced proceedings in the Dutch courts seeking a declaration that the services did not amount to salvage. The English court concluded that there had been salvage services provided. Further, the master had signed an express acknowledgement that there had been salvage and the court rejected an argument that the tanker’s owners were not bound by the certificate because the master had not understood that what he was signing was a contractual document.
SD Rebel BV v Elise Tankschiffart KG [2025] EWHC 376 (Admlty), 27 February 2025

State Immunity
The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal should have but did not consider the issue of state immunity of its own motion, where the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia (the “Embassy”) did not appear at the hearing. The dispute related to employment proceedings concerning a member of the Embassy’s administrative staff for the diplomatic mission. Under section 1(2) of the State Immunity Act 1978, the court is required to consider whether the claimant’s employment was an exercise of sovereign authority and so whether the Embassy was entitled to state immunity in relation to the claims of discrimination brought against it. The Supreme Court held however, that had the Court of Appeal considered the issue, it would have concluded that there was no entitlement to state immunity and so the appeal was dismissed.
Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia (Cultural Bureau) v Costantine [2025] UKSC 9, 6 March 2025

Should you wish to discuss any of these cases in further detail, please speak with a member of our London dispute resolution team below, or your regular contact at Watson Farley & Williams: