CASE DIGEST - COMMERCIAL LAW: COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION; BUSINESS TRADE; INTERESTS SHOULD BE PAID WHERE A PERSON DEPRIVES A BUSINESS/TRADE OF THE USE OF ITS MONEY

COMMERCIAL LAW: COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION; BUSINESS TRADE; INTERESTS SHOULD BE PAID WHERE A PERSON DEPRIVES A BUSINESS/TRADE OF THE USE OF ITS MONEY

UNITS ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE LTD. v. REVENUE MOBILIZATION ALLOCATION & FISCAL COMMISSION

(ARIWOOLA; OKORO; AUGIE; ABOKI; AGIM, JJ.SC)

Units Environmental Science Ltd (Appellant) and Revenue Mobilization Allocation & Fiscal Commission (Respondent) herein, entered into a Consultancy Agreement sometime in the year 2001 with respect to the Respondent's Staff Housing Development project, situate at Mabushi, Abuja. By Section 15 of the Consultancy Agreement, any dispute arising from the consultancy Agreement shall be resolved through Arbitration. Pursuant to a dispute arising out of the Consultancy Agreement, An Arbitrator was appointed as Sole Arbitrator, who after the arbitration proceedings, published an Award.

The Respondent herein was aggrieved by the published Arbitral Award and applied to the Federal High Court, contending inter alia that the Sole Arbitrator went outside of what was agreed or contemplated by the parties in the Consultancy Agreement, in computing what the Appellant (as Claimant) was entitled to. The Appellant disagreed with the Motion for setting aside the Arbitral Award and filed its own motion seeking for the recognition and enforcement of the published Award by the Sole Arbitrator. The Federal High Court in its judgment struck out the Respondent's Motion for setting aside, and granted the Appellant's motion for the recognition and enforcement of the published Award, by the Sole Arbitrator. Aggrieved, the Respondent appealed to the Court of Appeal (Lower Court), and the Lower Court allowed the appeal, and set aside the decision of the trial Court. It also held that there was merit in the application and set aside the Award.

Dissatisfied by the decision of the Lower Court, the Appellant appealed to the Supreme Court. One of the issues for determination is: Whether the Court of appeal decided and acted erroneously when it set aside the Judgment of the Federal High Court as well as the Arbitral Award on the ground that pre-award Interest was neither claimable or awardable in the total circumstances of the appeal before it.

Learned Counsel argued for the Appellant that from the evidence, it is evident that the Appellant was entitled to his claim of interest having been denied access to the money that was sought as damages arising naturally in the course from the Respondent's breach of the contract, and that the Court of Appeal's decision that the trial court's award of pre-award of contract interest has no factual and legal foundation is perverse and incorrect. Counsel stated further that damages for willful, deliberate retention of monies due to another by a party to a contract, whether or not containing an agreement as to interest will attract damages usually by the way of interest by mercantile custom, that in the case before the Sole Arbitrator, this case was made, pleadings specifically put out and evidence led, and that there was evidence and a specific finding that the respondent received the full range of services that the Appellant had offered, but when it came time to pay, the Respondent paid a pitiful sum and then tried to escape its obligations by blaming the Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances, etc.) Act No. 6, 2002. This was a fruitless attempt to claim frustration by government action.