In Amaplat Mauritius Ltd. v. Zimbabwe Mining, 2025 ONSC 7174, the Honourable Justice W.D. Black recognized and enforced a 2014 ICC Arbitration award together with a Zambian judgment recognizing an arbitral award against a Respondent Mining Company for $50 Million USD plus interest. The final judgment is not under appeal.
The Amaplat case highlights the long and winding road that litigants must often take from the arbitration stage through to enforcement and collection. The Applicants’ underlying dispute concerned joint mining venture contracts entered in 2007 and 2008. The Applicants commenced arbitration in 2012 and received their arbitral award in 2014, which they then successfully applied to the Zambian High Court to be registered and enforced in 2019, against challenges to the arbitral award from the Respondent mining corporation.
When the Applicants eventually brought their arbitral award and Zambian judgment to the Ontario Superior Court Commercial List, the Applicants then faced a procedural hurdle in November 2024 as the Respondents sought an order removing their counsel of record, and the Applicants sought an order substituting service of their materials on the Respondents. The Respondents’ counsel was ultimately removed, and the Applicants obtained an order for substituted service.[1]
On the merits of the Application, Justice Black held that the Applicants had satisfied the requirements for recognition and enforcement of the 2014 ICC award under the International Commercial Arbitration Act, 2017, which incorporates the UN Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The Applicants fulfilled their requirement under Article IV of the Convention to provide certified copies of the arbitral award and arbitration agreement, and the Respondents failed to provide any tenable evidence to meet their onus for challenging the arbitral award.
More than twelve years after commencing arbitration, the Applicants obtained their final judgment for the amounts awarded in the 2014 ICC award together with the Zambian judgment, converted to Canadian currency, plus accrued interest. In this way, the Amaplat case is a reminder that patience and perseverance is a necessity for would-be participants in international commercial arbitration, as success at the arbitration stage is only a first step in a longer journey.
[1] AMAPLAT MAURITIUS LTD. et al. v. ZIMBABWE MINING DEVELOPMENT CORPORTATION, 2024 ONSC 6469