The Supreme Court has handed down judgment in Process & Industrial Developments Ltd v Federal Republic of Nigeria [2025] UKSC 36, holding that costs can be recovered in whatever currency they were billed and paid by the receiving party’s lawyers, so that, where they were billed and paid in sterling, there should be no enquiry into how the receiving party acquired the sterling. The result means the failure of P&ID’s attempt to force Nigeria to recover its costs of having a fraudulently obtained arbitration award overturned awarded in its own currency, which would have reduced its costs claim from around £44 million to around £12 million.
Jamie Carpenter KC represented Nigeria in the Supreme Court, leading Tom Ford of Essex Court Chambers, instructed by Mishcon de Reya LLP (Shaistah Akhtar, Andrew Short and Lydia Allaby-Tiller).
This note examines the decision and its implications in more detail.
