What it costs to attack an award

The month produced an unusual run of decisions on one question, which is what a party may recover when it has spent money litigating about an arbitral award. Three judges of the DIFC Courts assessed those costs in orders issued between 21 and 23 September, the assessments ranging from USD 25,000 to an interim certificate of USD 1,380,508.12. A fourth assessment, in an arbitrator appointment claim, restated the test the Court of Appeal had already approved for every standard assessment in the jurisdiction. Elsewhere the Court of Appeal decided whether a settlement can be enforced inside the action it settled and dismissed a bank’s application for security for the costs of an appeal against a committal order. The ADGM Courts held the waiver in a full and final settlement invalid for want of a single statutory warranty. Each item gives the facts as the source records them. Three of them also add a reading of our own, marked where it appears, about what the decisions mean for anyone with money at stake in a UAE dispute.

Ella Rowles-DaviesEquipoise

What it costs to attack an award

Three orders issued between 21 and 23 September assessed the costs of fights about arbitral awards, two on the standard basis and one on the indemnity basis. The sums are far apart. The smallest followed a failed application to vary an anti-suit injunction so as to permit a challenge to an award in the Dubai Courts outside the DIFC, the largest a failed set-aside of an award of approximately USD 1.65 billion.

Korek Telecom v Iraq Telecom (ARB 012/2023 and CA 016/2024), order of 22 September 2026

H.E. Justice Michael Black conducted a detailed assessment of the costs of defending a failed challenge to an award of “approximately USD 1.65 billion”. That sum, inclusive of pre-award interest and costs, was awarded on 20 March 2023 in a DIFC-seated ICC arbitration against Korek Telecom Company LLC, Korek International (Management) Limited and Mr Sirwan Saber Mustafa. A set-aside application under Article 41 of the Arbitration Law 2008 failed on 29 August 2024 with costs on the standard basis, as did the appeal on 16 June 2025, the appeal order being silent as to basis so that the standard basis applied under RDC 38.20(1). Iraq Telecom claimed USD 2,437,245.80 at the assessment. The paying parties disputed 403 of 552 line items in the first bill and 230 of 428 in the second, called 725 hours of preparation for the appeal hearing “on any view, an extraordinarily excessive amount of time” and described the receiving parties as seeking a “backdoor indemnity claim”. Their case was that conduct outside the assessment was irrelevant to it.

On conduct as a factor in proportionality the paying parties succeeded. Iraq Telecom had relied on their being “in breach of at least ten DIFC Court orders for the payment of money”, but the judge held those allegations irrelevant to the proportionality exercise: “while the PP may not have adhered to highest ethical standards in their commercial dealings with the RP, that is irrelevant for immediate purposes”. Their procedural conduct did not take the case out of the norm either, so there was “no conduct of a kind that should figure in my assessment when considering the issue of proportionality”. He made no finding on whether the paying parties were in fact in breach of those orders. On proportionality they lost. He found that “every other metric – amount in dispute, importance, complexity and novelty, skill, effort ...” pointed firmly in the other direction, it being “unrealistic to suggest that this was not the heaviest of international dispute resolution”, so no further deduction for proportionality was appropriate. He was unwilling “to deduct an arbitrary percentage on some convenient but unprincipled basis that receiving parties should only receive some customary proportion of their claim”, working instead item by item, disallowing 216.24 hours of two London-based solicitors and reducing 311.11 hours on a skeleton argument to 249.80 hours. As at that order an interim certificate issued for USD 1,380,508.12, being the sum claimed less the itemised deduction of USD 1,056,737.68 the paying parties had set out in their skeleton argument. An amended bill applying the judge’s own findings was due by 13 October 2026 for a final certificate the order says will be higher.

Princeton v Persephone (ARB 015/2026 and ARB 027/2026), order of 21 September 2026

In this anonymised matter a rolled-up bill left the applicant with a standard-basis assessment throughout. A final majority award of 19 January 2026 in a DIAC arbitration was set aside by H.E. Justice Mark Pelling on 14 August 2026. The order recognising it fell with it. An indemnity assessment was sought of AED 1,340,910.95 inclusive of VAT. Four elements of the respondent’s conduct were found to be “outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct to be expected of those litigating in this Court”, among them a breach of the judge’s own recognition order and a failure of full and frank disclosure. He said he would have ordered indemnity costs of the recognition claim had they been sought separately. He refused the indemnity basis for the whole on two grounds. The applicant had advanced “a single rolled up costs claim and neither party is seeking a detailed assessment”, leaving no safe basis on which he could assess one element differently, so that directing indemnity assessment of all of it “would be exorbitant and disproportionate”. He also held that the four conduct elements did not merit indemnity assessment of the whole, so separate schedules might have produced the indemnity basis on those two matters, never across the bill. Conduct still told on the standard assessment. The respondent having offered no particularised objection to any item while asking for a substantial discount, “reasonableness and proportionality has to be approached with a very broad brush”. The judge cut the hours claimed for unexplained “Other Work” by 30% while reducing the hours on documents by only 20% “when otherwise I would have discounted by a rather larger amount”.

Paul v Paxton (ARB 010/2026), order of 23 September 2026

Here the indemnity basis was allowed. H.E. Justice Roger Stewart had dismissed an application by which the defendant sought to vary an anti-suit injunction so as to let it ask the Dubai Courts outside the DIFC to set aside an award of 5 December 2025, his earlier order having recorded disquiet at the defendant’s conduct and found the grounds misconceived. Permission had been given to apply for costs within seven days of that order. The claimant applied on 1 June 2026 for USD 43,505.62 on the indemnity basis. The judge set out the consequence: “The effect of an indemnity basis is such as to reverse the burden of proof as to reasonableness and remove the requirement for proportionality”. He still disallowed the disbursements as wholly unidentified, struck out time billed for a two-hour hearing that never took place and cut the time on documents as unreasonable. He assessed the costs at USD 25,000, the claimant having chosen not to answer the objections.

Our reading

Three assessments in three days, on sums more than fiftyfold apart, turned on the same thing. In each the decisive question was how the costs claim had been built or how the objection to it was framed. In Korek the paying parties disputed 403 of 552 items in one bill and 230 of 428 in the other. The judge took their own itemised deduction of USD 1,056,737.68 from the USD 2,437,245.80 claimed as the measure for an interim certificate, expressly without the further percentage they sought on proportionality. He said the final figure would be higher. The applicant in Princeton rolled every claim and application into a single figure and so lost the indemnity basis it would have obtained for the recognition claim, the judge being unable to assess one part differently from the rest. Its opponent made the mirror error by asking for a substantial discount without identifying a single item. It still got reductions, among them two reduced hourly rates and 30% off an unexplained category of hours, almost all of which the judge arrived at himself. The one objection it did particularise, on a fee earner’s attendance at the hearing, he accepted.

The two decisions treat conduct differently. In Korek the earlier costs orders had fixed the basis of assessment. On the assessment RDC 38.22 required the court to give effect to those orders, so the paying parties’ alleged misconduct in the arbitration or in other proceedings could not alter that basis. RDC 38.23(1) separately requires the court to have regard to conduct. Princeton shows that conduct can still move the figure within a standard assessment, the judge there discounting the hours on documents by 20% rather than the larger amount he would otherwise have applied. In our view the difference is one of reach rather than principle. Conduct will not reopen a basis of assessment that an earlier order has already fixed. Justice Black recorded the Court of Appeal in Melody v Melance as having held that conduct cannot be used to impose a sanction or penalty on the paying party. What it remains available for is narrower than that sounds. Additional costs become recoverable only where the paying party’s conduct caused the receiving party to incur them. Princeton shows conduct weighing in the broad-brush discount on a standard assessment as well, which is a different mechanism from recovering costs that the conduct caused.

Arbitration in the DIFC Courts

Appointing an arbitrator and the cost of doing so (ARB 017/2026), orders of 21 September and 16 October 2026

H.E. Justice Mark Pelling appointed a sole arbitrator under Article 17(3)(b) of the DIFC Arbitration Law in this anonymised charterparty claim. Under a charterparty of 15 November 2018 the parties had agreed on a DIFC-seated arbitration before a single arbitrator. The owner proposed a named arbitrator and the charterer, having sought extensions of time between 26 January and 16 February 2026, refused by email on 17 February, writing that “we understand you have appointed him in a number of different matters and would prefer that an arbitrator is appointed who you do not have a long standing history of appointing”. It did not acknowledge service of the arbitration claim or oppose it. The judge recorded that “a significant number of appointments over a short period might be grounds for a court declining to appoint”, but that the allegation was wholly unparticularised and the charterer had chosen not to engage. The owner wanted this arbitrator because he had been appointed in a separate dispute between the same parties on similar allegations and was proposed for a third, which the judge noted might have given rise to concern had the point been pursued.

On costs he held the order proposed to be inappropriate, for a reason of principle: “no party should be ordered by a court to pay costs other than those that have been assessed by that court in accordance with its rules”. The court cannot delegate that question to an arbitrator. He directed instead that the claimant file a costs schedule within 14 days of service, the defendant answer within 7 days and the claimant reply within a further 7, with the court then deciding the basis of assessment and the amount on paper.

The assessment came back on 16 October at AED 53,550 against AED 60,146.74 claimed. The judge rejected as “difficult to think of a more un-meritorious submission” the argument that the claimant should recover nothing because its submissions were served four and three quarter hours late, no prejudice having been identified. It was common ground that the assessment was on the standard basis. On quantum the judge adopted the test from Kazakhstan Kagazy plc v Zhunus, as quoted in the order: “the lowest amount which it could reasonably have been expected to spend in order to have its case conducted and presented proficiently, having regard to all the relevant circumstances”. Noting that the DIFC Court of Appeal approved it in The Industrial Group Limited v Hamid [2022] DIFC CA 005/006, he held that this is “a principle that should now be applied in all standard assessments in this jurisdiction”. The rates claimed were within the guideline rates in Registrar’s Direction No. 1 of 2023 and needed no downward adjustment.

In the DIFC Court of Appeal

Zuzana Kapova v Makovini and Pharm Trade Holding Ltd [2026] DIFC CA 012, judgment of 14 October 2026

The Court of Appeal, constituted by H.E. Justice Robert French, H.E. Justice Thomas Bathurst and H.E. Justice Roger Stewart, decided whether a court can summarily enforce a settlement inside the action the settlement stayed, where the consent order did not take the Tomlin form recommended by RDC 36.29. H.E. Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke tried the claim between 6 and 9 January 2026 and encouraged the parties to settle. They signed a full and final settlement agreement on 13 January under which Ms Kapova was to pay Mr Makovini EUR 1,000,000 in three instalments, the first of EUR 400,000 due by 27 January. A consent order the next day stayed all further proceedings with liberty to apply. When the first instalment went unpaid the judge lifted the stay and entered immediate judgment for the accelerated sum.

Dismissing the appeal, the court held that a stay, “unlike a discontinuance, withdrawal, dismissal or judgment in the action does not bring an action to an end”, that the consent order expressly contemplated the action continuing and referred to the settlement agreement in its recitals, so that in those circumstances “the Court had jurisdiction, if it considered it appropriate, to lift the stay for the purposes of enforcing the terms of the Settlement Agreement”. It rejected the argument that the agreement itself barred enforcement in the existing proceedings, observing that “there would seem to be no practical purpose in requiring issues relating to the Settlement Agreement to be raised by way of separate proceedings in the same court”. On the merits it held that four clauses of the agreement precluded Ms Kapova from relying on alleged misrepresentations “save in respect of a viable case of fraudulent misrepresentation”. No document particularising such a case had been provided to either court. A separate ground of economic duress also failed. It declined to take account of evidence not before the judge, save for one limited application to adduce further evidence which it held could not affect the result. The court held that the judge was correct to find that he had jurisdiction to enforce the settlement agreement and that he was entitled to enter summary judgment. It dismissed the appeal and lifted the stay of execution granted in June 2026.

VTB Bank PJSC v Kuanyshev and others (CA 013/2026), order of 13 October 2026

The Court of Appeal dismissed VTB Bank’s application for security for the costs of an appeal against a committal order made by Justice Black on 15 April 2026, which followed a worldwide freezing order of 19 December 2025. The bank’s evidence was that the judge had “awarded the sum of USD 282,020.38 in full against the Appellants” on the indemnity basis, that the sum fell due on 25 June 2026 under RDC 38.40 and remained wholly unpaid, that no asset of the first and fourth appellants had been identified within the DIFC, plus that a parallel English freezing order had been discharged. It asked the court to make satisfaction of the costs order a condition of continuing the appeal, alternatively to refuse to hear the appeal until the appellants purged their contempt. The court dismissed the application as having come too late, the appeal having been listed for hearing on 21 October 2026. It also weighed that this was “an appeal against a penal order made by the Court which is not simply a matter between party and party”. It did not accept that the appellants are precluded from appealing the sanctions until they have purged their contempt, their appeal being on its face “bona fide”. The bank’s evidence described them as unpurged contemnors who had not challenged the finding of contempt. On that the Court of Appeal made no finding. The merits of the appeal against the sanctions were not before the court on this application. This issue closed before the hearing of 21 October without any decision on it having been published.

In the DIFC Court of First Instance

CTS Middle East FZCO v Pivot Integrated Energy FZC (CFI 024/2026), order of 14 October 2026

H.E. Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke entered judgment for AED 4,191,800.49 with interest at 5% from 1 June 2026, giving AED 4,269,173.04 at the date of the order. He refused the defendant’s application to pay by instalments over 23 months or more. The defendant had offered USD 100,000 immediately and USD 50,000 a month. Its manager said this: “immediate payment of the entire balance would exceed Pivot’s present liquid resources and, in my view, would materially impair the continuing trading operations from which repayment is expected to be generated”. Management accounts at 15 September 2026 showed total assets of AED 869,926.20 against current liabilities of AED 3,750,170.79.

RDC 48.53 turns either on “special circumstances” which render it inexpedient to enforce the judgment or on an inability from any cause to pay. The defendant, the judge held, “needs to produce cogent evidence of inability to pay”. No audited accounts were produced. No market valuation was put in evidence for the unmortgaged office bought in March 2025 for AED 1.3 million, the claimant having produced asking prices for smaller offices in the same block. Nor did the defendant’s manager say that it was impossible to pay by borrowing or by funding from himself or an associated company, which the trial balance showed had happened before. On that material the judge found that the evidence before him “does not establish an inability to pay”, adding that a defendant who wishes to trade on should not do so at the expense of a judgment creditor it had already kept out of its money under a settlement agreement.

Karthi Keyan Venkataramana v Ahmed Mohammad Abdul Rahman Ali (CFI 110/2025), order of 6 October 2026

H.E. Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke assessed costs under RDC 38.28 and 38.29 following a trial of something over five hours spread across two days. The costs of the action came to AED 914,400 on the standard basis, the figure capped by a conditional fee arrangement between the claimant and his lawyers and about 92% of the AED 995,315.50 the same work would have cost at hourly rates. The absence of any bar to such an arrangement was conceded. Nothing required the court to disallow it provided that it is reasonable. On the indemnity principle, the judge held it was not breached because “what is claimed is what the Claimant owes to his lawyers”. He assessed a permission application and a freezing order application together at AED 310,000 on the indemnity basis, the assessment application at AED 71,500. Conduct was the reason given for the indemnity basis. The order records that the judgment, which was given on 15 July 2026 and so falls outside this issue, contained findings of fraud the defendant did not challenge, so that to persist in seeking permission to appeal in the face of those “unchallenged findings of fraud in the Judgment” on a basis which could not succeed justified an indemnity award, as did the opposition to the freezing injunction. Permission was refused and the freezing order granted on 17 September 2026.

Perrin v Pamula (CFI 081/2026), order of 12 October 2026

Cross-appeals from the Small Claims Tribunal took H.E. Justice Rene Le Miere into what an employer may hold back at the end of a fixed term. The Tribunal had ordered the employer to pay USD 51,202.93, including USD 21,039.80 as payment in lieu of notice. That element went. Reading the contract as a whole the judge found that “the parties agreed an initial fixed term ending on 1 January 2026, subject to earlier termination or to renewal or conversion to permanent employment”, so Article 62(6)(b) of the DIFC Employment Law excluded the statutory minimum notice and the contract required no separate notice of non-renewal. The Tribunal had asked only whether one month or three was due, having called the employer’s reading “somehow logical” without deciding whether the term was fixed at all. That was “an error of law” and “the conclusion was wrong”. Three days of untaken leave were allowed at USD 1,456.60, which left the order at USD 31,619.73. The employee also won a ground the Tribunal had left undecided, which the judge held was itself an error because a pleaded remedy must be decided whatever the answer would have been. Clause 26.2 of his contract incorporated the employer’s Staff Rules, under which Staff Rule 8405 provided that on termination he “shall be entitled to” a certificate of service. That is “a contractual entitlement, not a matter of discretion or goodwill” rather than the matter of good practice the employer had argued for. The judge ordered a signed certificate within 14 days giving the dates of employment, the position held and the principal duties.

The employee also claimed a penalty under Article 19 of the DIFC Employment Law he put at USD 66,032.67, being a daily wage of USD 485.53 for each of the 136 days from 16 January to 31 May 2026. That failed, because the two sums relied on were a provident fund balance of USD 9,684.44 and employee share plan proceeds of USD 7,279.45, neither of which the judge held to be falling within any payment category in Article 19(1), the Account A balance being a savings balance already held in the fund and the ESOP proceeds the value of shares rather than an employment payment. He took from the Court of Appeal in Expresso Telecom Group Ltd v Rahamtalla that “Article 19(1) is not the source of an employee’s entitlement” because it “imposes a time limit for paying entitlements that arise elsewhere, under the contract or the Law”. Having disposed of the ground on that footing he went on, in case he was wrong, to decide two further questions against the employer. On Article 19(4)(a) he declined the construction the employer pressed, under which a pending dispute about any sum suspends the penalty on every sum, observing that on that reading “a dispute about a trivial sum would remove the penalty on large sums admittedly due”. The employer had relied on Nyla v Naomi Limited [2024] DIFC SCT 510 and Odin v Ozzy (CFI 063/2025), which the judge held recite the language of Article 19(4)(a) without considering whether it reaches sums that are not in dispute. On Article 19(4)(b) he held that the material cause of non-payment was “the condition the Defendant attached to payment, not the Claimant’s conduct”, that condition being a full and final release of every claim. As he put it, “An employee is not required to give up disputed claims in order to receive sums the employer accepts are due”. The appeal on this ground still failed. The judge held the Tribunal’s reasoning “incomplete” for applying Article 19(4)(a) to every sum claimed because a claim had been filed, without asking whether each sum fell within Article 19(1) or was in dispute, while “its conclusion that no penalty was payable was correct”.

In the ADGM Courts

Masaood Developments LLC v Soulaf Bensalem [2026] ADGMCFI 0025, judgment of 23 September 2026

Justice Paul Heath KC refused an unopposed application for default judgment because the money claimed might be an unenforceable penalty. The developer sold a residential unit in Azure Tower on Al Reem Island in July 2019 for AED 988,019 excluding maintenance fees, payable in 182 instalments to June 2034. It alleged that the purchaser paid until 23 July 2023, the customer account recording AED 479,503.58 received, then stopped. The claim was issued on 28 April 2026 and no step was taken to defend it. The developer sought termination, vacant possession and AED 521,054.77, being a shortfall on an Agreed Termination Amount plus an outstanding balance.

The parties signed the agreement when Al Reem Island still lay outside the ADGM. It submits disputes to the courts of Abu Dhabi excluding the ADGM Courts. Only the court of the jurisdiction in which land is situated can adjudicate on title or possession, the judge held, so the ADGM Courts alone have jurisdiction over land there, which the developer accepted. Applying the Privy Council’s approach in Lux Locations Ltd v Yida Zhang to rule 340(2) of the ADGM Court Procedure Rules, he held that the question whether the purchaser breached the agreement and the validity of the termination “should be treated as having been established for default judgment purposes”, but that he was required to inquire into the relief sought. Rule 340(2) restricts default judgment in a Real Property Division claim to money claims unless the court orders otherwise. Rule 340(5) incorporates rule 40A(1), under which the court may enter judgment only for what the claimant appears entitled to on its statement of case. Both rules, the judge held, require “a judicial evaluation of the question of relief”. Given the impact on the purchaser, “an issue arises as to whether the amount claimed can be characterised as an unenforceable penalty under ADGM law”, while the question “whether UAE or ADGM law applies is yet to be determined”. He was “not convinced that it would be appropriate to enter default judgment for the relief sought” and directed an expedited witness hearing after 30 October 2026, with permission for expert evidence on the penalty question under ADGM law or, if UAE law applies, on any adjustment under the UAE Civil Code. No finding has been made that the Agreed Termination Amount is a penalty.

Mohamad Muzaffer Nahvi v Reem Hospital Ltd and another [2026] ADGMCFI 0026, judgment of 6 October 2026

Justice William Stone SBS KC held that an acknowledgment in a full and final settlement was an invalid waiver for want of one statutory warranty, then dismissed every head of the claim it had purported to bar. The claimant was Chief Human Resources Officer of Reem Hospital from December 2024 until his termination in September 2025, given three months’ notice and garden leave under a memorandum stating that “your Full-Time position of Chief HR Officer at Reem Hospital has been made redundant”, then paid AED 151,124 under a Final Settlement carrying an acknowledgment that he would have no further claims. The claim followed in February 2026 for USD 159,417.70. Section 1(2)(d) of the ADGM Employment Regulations 2024 sets a precondition: “the Employee warrants in the agreement that they have had an opportunity to receive independent legal advice on the terms and effect of entering into the agreement”. The acknowledgment contained no such statement, so “absent fulfilment of this statutory precondition, any agreement sought to be enforced is caught by the foundation principle expressed in section 1(1)” and shall be void. The judge therefore held that “the Acknowledgment was an invalid waiver of Mr Nahvi’s right to sue”, a point he reached himself because the claimant had not expressly raised it.

The claims then failed. A Senior Leadership Team bonus was held to be “exclusively an extra-contractual matter” for the hospital’s board to dispense in the exercise of its discretion. The employer’s case was that its published framework made all bonuses subject to final review of the board. On the Braganza argument that the discretion had been exercised arbitrarily, the judge said this: “On the evidence, the Court is in no position to conclude either that there has been an arbitrary or a discriminatory exercise of such discretion”. Of the claimant’s two witnesses, one had received a bonus and one had not. On the suggestion that the termination was timed to avoid bonus liability the judge said that the court “makes no finding upon such speculation”. Asked whether the restructuring was genuine he said that the court “makes no finding on the validity of the decision thus taken”, the termination being lawful under the three-month notice clause, the reason being irrelevant once that notice had been given and the case disclosing nothing approaching discrimination or victimisation. Claims for children’s insurance of AED 10,000 and for an AED 373,750 bonus said to have accrued with a dissolved onshore entity failed too.

In brief

Court documents with blockchain credentials. The DIFC Courts announced on 14 October that court orders and hearing records “now carry a unique, blockchain-verifiable, nontransferable digital authenticity credential”. The release says that “a cryptographic fingerprint of the digital file is linked to a unique, NFT-based credential recorded on the Avalanche C-Chain”, that any alteration to the file makes verification fail and that the document itself “is not stored on the blockchain”. In our view the open question is whether the banks and registries that receive DIFC orders will accept the credential in place of the consular route, on which the release says nothing.

A freezing order policed by the DIFC. In Trafigura Pte Ltd v Gupta (CFI 040/2025), H.E. Justice Robert French corrected his judgment of 9 September 2026 under RDC 36.41 on 13 October. The undertaking required of the claimants had been recorded as covering enforcement outside the UAE when the intention was enforcement outside the DIFC. As corrected it requires that the applicants “will not without permission of the Court seek to enforce this Order anywhere outside the DIFC”, the judge having said that any such enforcement action should “be subject to the supervision of this Court”. In our view that leaves any attempt to invoke the DIFC freezing order in the onshore courts needing this court’s permission first. The order itself corrects a slip under RDC 36.41 and records no finding about the underlying allegations.

Interest for 504 days. Two orders of H.E. Justice Roger Stewart of 13 October follow the immediate judgment in favour of EFG Bank reported in Issue 1. Under the slip rule in RDC 36.41 he corrected three errors. The interest calculation had been worked for 365 days when the period from 10 March 2025 to 27 July 2026, the date of the order being corrected, was 504 days. A euro principal given in the July order as EUR 4,218,152.130 became EUR 4,218,152.30. The dollar sum carrying contractual interest became USD 3,885.78. By the second order he referred the defendants’ application for permission to appeal, together with their application to extend time for it, to the Court of Appeal, having formed the preliminary view that the proposed grounds raise no matter with a real prospect of success.

A bank chased for documents. In Keshav Global Trading LLC and another v ETG Commodities Holding Limited (CFI 069/2024), H.E. Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke extended the time for Bank of India, DIFC Branch to answer a non-party disclosure application but ordered the bank to pay the costs of its own extension application. The documents had been requested on 22 May 2026, chased in June and August and refused on 3 September. Whether the bank took advice was not known to the court, which observed that “a responsible Bank should have done so”. The judge granted the shorter extension the bank eventually offered on the footing that it “has thus achieved its objective without the existence of any good reason for an extension of time of the length sought”.

A reciprocal visa cancellation order. In Peder v Paulus and Phelps (CFI 032/2026), H.E. Justice Rene Le Miere made a reciprocal order on 13 October about cancelling the claimant’s residence visa and sponsorship. The first defendant, as sponsor, did not oppose cancellation through the cancellation-with-pending-dues procedure, the matters for decision being the terms of the order and costs. It must provide the cancellation document within three business days, after which the sponsored party must sign, return it and supply his identity documents within five. Neither party may require the other, as a condition of cancellation, to make any disputed payment or to execute any waiver or settlement compromising a claim or defence in the proceedings. The parties dispute responsibility for the delay and the judge made no finding of default by either of them.

Nothing from the two centres. Neither DIAC nor arbitrateAD posted a news item dated within the coverage window. The DIFC Courts issued no practice direction or practical guidance note. Checked on 21 October 2026, the most recent item on the DIAC news page was dated 24 September 2025 and the most recent on the arbitrateAD news page 1 June 2026.

Sources

1. (1) Korek Telecom Company LLC (2) Korek International (Management) Limited (3) Sirwan Saber Mustafa v (1) Iraq Telecom Limited (2) International Holdings Limited, ARB 012/2023 and CA 016/2024, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Michael Black, issued 22 September 2026 difccourts.ae
2. Princeton v Persephone, ARB 015/2026 and ARB 027/2026, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Mark Pelling, issued 21 September 2026 difccourts.ae
3. Paul v Paxton, ARB 010/2026, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Roger Stewart, issued 23 September 2026 difccourts.ae
4. ARB 017/2026, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Mark Pelling assessing the claimant’s costs, issued 16 October 2026 (published as Parker v Pedro) difccourts.ae
5. ARB 017/2026, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Mark Pelling appointing a sole arbitrator, issued 21 September 2026 (published as Perline v Prisha) difccourts.ae
6. Zuzana Kapova v (1) Miloslav Makovini (2) Pharm Trade Holding Ltd [2026] DIFC CA 012, Judgment of the Court of Appeal (H.E. Justice Robert French, H.E. Justice Thomas Bathurst and H.E. Justice Roger Stewart), 14 October 2026 difccourts.ae
7. VTB Bank PJSC v (1) Timur Orazbekovich Kuanyshev (2) Evgeny Vyacheslavovich Shlenskikh (3) Shev Energy LLC-FZ (4) Alfiya Abulkhair Askar (5) Munira Orhayevna Baymenova, CA 013/2026, Order with Reasons of the Court of Appeal, issued 13 October 2026 difccourts.ae
8. CTS Middle East FZCO v Pivot Integrated Energy FZC, CFI 024/2026, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke, issued 14 October 2026 difccourts.ae
9. Karthi Keyan Venkataramana v Ahmed Mohammad Abdul Rahman Ali, CFI 110/2025, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke, issued 6 October 2026 difccourts.ae
10. (1) EFG (Middle East) Ltd (2) EFG Bank Ltd v (1) Marj Holding Limited (2) Arj Holding Limited (3) Mohammad Ahmad Ramadhan Juma, CFI 029/2025, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Roger Stewart under RDC 36.41, issued 13 October 2026 difccourts.ae
11. (1) EFG (Middle East) Ltd (2) EFG Bank Ltd v (1) Marj Holding Limited (2) Arj Holding Limited (3) Mohammad Ahmad Ramadhan Juma, CFI 029/2025, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Roger Stewart referring the appeal applications to the Court of Appeal, issued 13 October 2026 difccourts.ae
12. Perrin v Pamula, CFI 081/2026, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Rene Le Miere on cross-appeals from SCT 027/2026, issued 12 October 2026 difccourts.ae
13. Masaood Developments LLC v Soulaf Bensalem [2026] ADGMCFI 0025, ADGMCFI-2026-256, Judgment of Justice Paul Heath KC, 23 September 2026 assets.adgm.com
14. Mohamad Muzaffer Nahvi v Reem Hospital Ltd and Vamed Middle East Healthcare Management and Consultancy Service L.L.C. [2026] ADGMCFI 0026, ADGMCFI-2026-118, Judgment of Justice William Stone SBS KC, 6 October 2026 assets.adgm.com
15. DIFC Courts, press release of 14 October 2026 on NFT-based credentials for court documents difccourts.ae
16. (1) Trafigura Pte Ltd (2) Trafigura India Pvt Ltd v (1) Mr Prateek Gupta (2) Ms Ginni Gupta, CFI 040/2025, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Robert French, issued 13 October 2026 difccourts.ae
17. (1) Keshav Global Trading LLC (2) Keshav Global Private Limited v ETG Commodities Holding Limited, with Bank of India, DIFC Branch as non-party respondent, CFI 069/2024, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke, issued 14 October 2026 difccourts.ae
18. Peder v (1) Paulus (2) Phelps, CFI 032/2026, Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Rene Le Miere, issued 13 October 2026 difccourts.ae
19. DIAC news page, most recent item dated 24 September 2025, checked 21 October 2026 diac.com
20. arbitrateAD news page, most recent item dated 1 June 2026, checked 21 October 2026 arbitratead.ae
21. DIFC Courts practice directions page, most recent entry Practice Direction No. 1 of 2026, checked 21 October 2026 difccourts.ae
22. ADGM Courts judgments page, checked 21 October 2026 adgm.com
23. DIFC Courts judgments and orders page, checked 21 October 2026 difccourts.ae

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