In <span class="news-text_italic-underline">CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd v India [2026] EWCA Civ 797</span>, the Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed an appeal from the Commercial Court concerning the enforcement of arbitral awards under the 1958 New York Convention (the “<span class="news-text_medium">1958 Convention</span>”). The Court held that India’s ratification of the 1958 Convention did not constitute a submission to the adjudicative jurisdiction of the English courts for the purposes of section 2 of the <span class="news-text_italic-underline">State Immunity Act 1978</span>.
The appellants sought to enforce arbitral awards worth more than EUR 195 million against the Republic of India. The awards arose from an arbitration seated in The Hague, brought under the Mauritius/India bilateral investment treaty and conducted under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. India resisted enforcement by relying on sovereign immunity under section 1 of the <span class="news-text_italic-underline">State Immunity Act 1978</span>. The appellants argued in response that India had waived its adjudicative immunity under section 2 by becoming a party to the 1958 Convention.
They relied in particular on Article III of the 1958 Convention, which provides that contracting states “shall recognise arbitral awards as binding and enforce them in accordance with the rules of procedure of the territory where the award is relied upon”. The appellants further contended that this wording was materially equivalent to Article 54(1) of the ICSID Convention. In <span class="news-text_italic-underline">Infrastructure Services Luxembourg SARL v The Kingdom of Spain [2026] UKSC 9</span>, the Supreme Court had held that Article 54(1) amounted to a waiver of state immunity. Delivering the leading judgment, Phillips LJ rejected that comparison.
The Court of Appeal held that Article III of the 1958 Convention differs materially from Article 54(1) of the ICSID Convention because it expressly qualifies the enforcement obligation by reference to the “rules of procedure” of the enforcing state. Applying the treaty interpretation principles in Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the Court concluded that this phrase includes rules on state immunity, which are recognised as procedural in both English law and international law.
Phillips LJ distinguished the Supreme Court’s decision in <span class="news-text_italic-underline">Infrastructure</span>. The Court emphasised that the ICSID Convention has different wording, context, object and purpose from the New York Convention. In particular, Article 54(1) of the ICSID Convention contains no reference to “rules of procedure”. Unlike the 1958 Convention, it necessarily applies to awards involving a contracting state as a party, establishes a self-contained regime for investment disputes and expressly preserves immunity from execution. That preservation of execution immunity was meaningful only because contracting states were otherwise subject to the adjudicative jurisdiction of other contracting states.
The decision is significant because it confirms that ratification of the 1958 Convention alone does not waive a state’s immunity from the jurisdiction of the English courts. However, as the Court of Appeal acknowledged, in many award enforcement cases the state will have been a party to an arbitration agreement and may therefore have submitted to jurisdiction under section 9 of the <span class="news-text_italic-underline">State Immunity Act 1978</span>.
<span class="news-text_medium">Case:</span> <span class="news-text_italic-underline">CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd v India [2026] EWCA Civ 797</span>, 24 June 2026.
