Power of court to award interest

In Gater Assets Ltd v NAK Naftogaz Ukrainiy (No 2) [2008] EWHC 1108 (Comm) Mr Justice Beatson considered the power of the English court, when giving a judgment enforcing a New York Convention award, to award interest for the period between the date of the award and the date of payment in circumstances where the arbitrators have not themselves done so.

Gater: the facts

The facts of this case will be familiar to readers of Arbitration Law Monthly. On 31 May 2000 Naftogaz was ordered to pay in excess of US$88m to Monde Re in subrogation proceedings brought before an arbitral tribunal in Russia. The award was duly assigned to the claimant, Gater, following unsuccessful attempts by Naftogaz to have the award set aside in the Moscow courts on the ground that material documents had been suppressed. An attempt by Gater to enforce the award in England was met by the defence that the award had been procured by fraud, but that defence was dismissed by Mr Justice Tomlinson earlier this year (see [2008] EWHC 237 (Comm), discussed in the August 2008 issue of Arbitration Law Monthly). Tomlinson J’s decision was a confirmation of an order made by Colman J on 23 May 2006 giving permission to enforce the award.