The District Court for the District of Columbia recognized a foreign judgment and confirmed two arbitration awards against the Republic of Guinea on March 31because the sovereign failed to make an appearance in the case. The Court noted that petitioner A.D. Trade Belgium S.P.L.R.'s petition to confirm was filed outside of the three-year statutory period under the Federal Arbitration Act, but confirmed the award regardless because "Guinea, as an absent defendant, has forfeited a statute-of-limitations defense, and the Court may not raise it sua sponte."
The Court refused however to award prejudgment interest on the potentially time-barred award and judgmet, noting that such an award "would be difficult to square with the high likelihood that A.D. Trade's petition to confirm the 2017 Award would be time-barred had Guinea appeared in this litigation." The Court further noted that such holding "could incentivize a similarly situated plaintiff to sit in a foreign judgment to allow interest to accrue at some astronomical rate."
The case is A.D. Trade Belgium S.P.L.R. v. Republic of Guinea, No. 1:22-cv-00245-RJL in the District Court for the District of Columbia. Petitioner is represented by Darryl Stein, Geoffrey J. Derrick, Josef Maxim Klazen, and Steven Gary Kobre of Kobre & Kim, LLP. The March 31 Opinion can be downloaded below.
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