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High Court Dismisses Vodacom Appeal(AllAfrica Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) THE High Court's Commercial Division has dismissed with costs the petition lodged by Vodacom Tanzania Limited to challenge an arbitral award for payments of over 1bn/- to a local IT Consulting Company, FTS Service Limited. In its petition, Vodacom Tanzania Limited sought to challenge the award by Arbitral Tribunal on grounds that its decision was unfairly reached. The Tribunal comprised Court of Appeal justices John Mrosso (rtd), High Court Judge Thomas Mihayo (rtd) and President of Tanganyika Law Society, seasoned advocate Charles Rwechungura. Judge Kassim Nyangarika of the High Court dismissed the petition and upheld the arbitral award of June 9, this year in favour of FTS Services and proceeded to register it as decree of the court, ready for execution and further enforcement. "I have no doubt that the arbitration process was fair and justified, thus, there is no errors whatsoever on the face of the award for setting it aside as suggested. The petition fails. I therefore dismiss the petition with costs," he concluded. FTS Service Limited had earlier sued Vodacom Tanzania Limited before the Tribunal for violating terms of their agreement and claimed compensation for damages due to illegal termination of their business partnership. According to Judge Nyangarika, by and large, the courts have always disfavoured interference with arbitral award and have shown definite inclination to preserve the award as far as possible. "It is now settled that an award of an arbitrator cannot be set aside by courts because by a process of interference and argument, it may be demonstrated that an arbitrator or tribunal has committed mistakes in arriving at his conclusion on merit of the dispute referred to it for adjudication," he said. "It is not open to the court t substitute its own reasons. Reappraisal of evidence or close scrutiny of evidence or finding out whether the findings of fact or law arrived at by the arbitrator or tribunal are correct or erroneous is not permissible." The claimant (FTS Services) had formally entered into Agreement with Vodacom Tanzania Limited (Respondent) as Vodacom Business Partner, for promoting and selling what is known as converged services and Vodacom Business Solutions in return for commissions in June, 2012. The main role of Claimant was to prospect customers and obtain sales orders for a complete range of Vodacom Enterprise solutions including account management as well as debt collections. Copyright Tanzania Daily News. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). |