Supreme Court Judgment No.517/2016.
In the context of an ICC Arbitration, the Arbitral Tribunal had awarded damages to Leidos (formerly SAIC) against the Greek State in the context of a dispute concerning the implementation of a C4I System procured for the security of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. In its Award the Tribunal had reviewed and rejected allegations of corruption and bribery attributed to a subcontractor. The Award had been appealed by the Greek State and annulled by the Athens Court of Appeal (ACA) on grounds of public order in that the ACA judged that based on the facts before it and accepted by the Tribunal, the Tribunal had erroneously rejected the allegations and therefore the Award’s validation and enforcement would violate (international) public order.
The legal issue for the Supreme Court was whether the ACA had erred in the course of adjudicating the annulment petition filed by the Greek State against the ICC Award and effectively had retried the case on the merits.
In a clear and concise judgement the Supreme Court ruled that ACA had erred by allowing its review of the subcontractor’s general behavior, who has been allegedly been involved in corruption, to taint the ACA’s approach to the ICC award, while also losing the focus on the actual facts of the case, as these had been ascertained through the detailed analysis and evaluation of the available evidence by the ICC Arbitral Tribunal. The SC ruled that the ACA had retried the case and thus had exceeded the legally allowed scope of review.
Gregory Pelecanos, Senior Partner at Ballas, Pelecanos & Associates LPC argued for Leidos Inc.
