Summary

This is an application by the Claimant, National Iranian Oil Company ('NIOC'), for permission to appeal against an award issued on 27 September 2021 (the 'Partial Award') under s. 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996 (the '1996 Act'). As such, it is a matter which would ordinarily be dealt with on the papers. However, owing to the complexity of the application (there were over ten bundles and the arbitral awards and submissions ran to many hundreds of pages) and a jurisdictional objection which has been made by the Defendants, Crescent Petroleum Company International Limited and Crescent Gas Corporation Limited ('Crescent Petroleum' and 'Crescent Gas' respectively and together 'Crescent'), in considering the permission application on the papers, I decided that it would be appropriate to determine that application at an oral hearing and to hear the substantive appeal on a de bene esse basis in the event that permission were to be granted.

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For the reasons which I have sought to give in this judgment, although Crescent's jurisdictional objection is rejected, permission to appeal must nonetheless be refused.