MOMAH (APPELLANT)
v.
VAB PETROLEUM INC (RESPONDENT)
Before: Muhammadu Lawal Uwais, CJN; Abubakar Bashir Wali; Emmanuel Obioma Ogwuegbu; Aloysius Iyorgyer Katsina-Alu; Okechukwu Godfrey Achike, JJSC
…………………….A…………………….
Uwais, CJN (Delivered the Leading Judgment):- This is an interlocutory appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division. The appellant herein is judgment debtor to a judgment delivered by the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, (commercial court) London, United Kingdom, while the respondent herein is the judgment creditor to the said foreign judgment which was obtained in 1991.
In 1993, the judgment creditor brought a Notice on Motion in the High Court of Lagos State, holden at Lagos, seeking an order of that court to register the foreign judgment in question pursuant to the provisions of the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act Cap. 152 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990. The motion was contested by the judgment debtor but it was granted by Adeniji J, in a considered ruling.
Being dissatisfied with the ruling, the judgment debtor appealed to the Court of Appeal. He also filed a Notice on Motion in that court in which he inter alia prayed for:-
“1. An order staying execution of the order made in this suit on the 14 December 1993 by the Honourable Justice AB Adeniji of the High Court of Lagos sitting in Lagos wherein he ordered the registration of the foreign judgment of the High Court of Justice of the Queen’s Bench Division of England pending the determination of the appeal filed in this Honourable Court.”
After filing series of affidavits, counter-affidavits and replies to counter-affidavits, the motion was heard by the Court of Appeal and a considered ruling was delivered on 25 June 1995 by Pats-Acholonu, JCA (with whom Kalgo, JCA, as he then was, and Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, JCA concurred). He dismissed the application in a somewhat lengthy ruling dealing in some respects with the substance and merit of the appeal which the Court of Appeal was yet to hear and determine. In my opinion, this is, with utmost respect, prejudicial, irregular and undesirable. Fortunately it is a different panel of the court below that will now hear the pending appeal. Be that as it may, the ruling was concluded thus:-
