ARBITRATION NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD By Sean Kelsey (London) AFRICA Mauritius Angola By its judgment dated 19 July 2016, the Judicial Committee of the UK Privy Council (the “Privy Council”) has rejected an appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court of Mauritius (the “Supreme Court”) upholding an award (the “Award”) made by a Mauritian arbitrator in 2005, who was himself the master and registrar of the Supreme Court at the time (the “Arbitrator”).The dispute concerned unpaid invoices issued by a property developer (“Mascareignes”) to a contractor (“Chang Cheng”) under a 1993 standard form JCT contract for the construction of an office building in the capital of Mauritius, Port Louis (the “Construction Contract”). The principal issue in dispute was whether under the Construction Contract Chang Cheng had been entitled to payment for works, which had been substantially redesigned during construction, on a ‘lump sum’ or a ‘measure and value’ basis. The Arbitrator held that the Construction Contract was a “measure and value” contract or (as a fall back) if it was initially a “lump-sum” contract, it was varied by the parties so that payment became due on the basis of measurement and valuation, as evidenced by the parties’ behaviour in carrying out the contract. The Arbitrator awarded Chang Cheng A resolution ratifying Angola’s accession to the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the “Convention”) came into force on 15 August 2016, making the West African country the 157th party to the Convention. The former Portuguese colony is Africa’s second largest oil producer after Nigeria and has experienced an annual growth rate in excess of 10 per cent since the end of a long civil war in 2002. Despite falling oil prices, infrastructure projects such as a new international airport for its capital, Luanda, continue to attract inward investment from the United States, Europe, Brazil, and China. Arbitrations seated in Angola are governed by the 2003 Voluntary Arbitration Law, which applies to both domestic and international proceedings and is to some extent based on the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law. Angola’s accession to the Convention is subject to the reciprocity reservation – i.e. Angolan courts will only recognise and enforce awards from other convention states. Angola is yet to accede to the ICSID Convention. 8 | K&L Gates: ARBITRATION WORLD