"Today’s ruling is a victory for the rule of law as much as it is for Bank Mellat. The judgment will put enormous confidence in the independence of the British judiciary and sets an example that even controversial disputes can be resolved…through the British courts,” declared Sarosh Zaiwalla, senior partner of the legal firm Zaiwalla and Company Solicitors who were engaged by Iran’s largest private bank to challenge the British Government’s sanctions that prevented the whole of the UK’s financial sector from having any business relationship with the Bank.
Sarosh Zaiwalla helped Bank Mellat get sanctions lifted by the British Supreme Court
On the premise that Bank Mellat has been aiding Iran’s disputed nuclear program, the British government had imposed sanctions which the Supreme Court, by a majority judgment, held were "arbitrary, irrational and disproportionate.” The British government’s sanctions were lifted after the Supreme Court’s "secret court” failed to produce significant evidence in the matter. "The duty to give advance notice and an opportunity to be heard to a person against whom a draconian statutory power is to be exercised is one of the oldest principles of what would now be called public law,” ruled Lord Jonathan Sumption. Since the Treasury had given Bank Mellat no opportunity to make representations, "the Bank is entitled to succeed,” he added.
"The verdict by a nine-judge bench has shown to the international community that in the UK and Europe, international sanctions are judicially reviewable and that sanctions should be substantiated by evidence,” Zaiwalla was quoted by IANS (Indo-Asian News Service) on June 19. This landmark ruling vindicated Bank Mellat’s victory in the European Union’s General Court in Luxembourg in January where no evidence was found to prove the Bank’s connection to the Iranian government’s nuclear program. While the western nations believe that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons, the Middle East country maintains the nuclear program is for domestic power consumption and medical purposes.
During the course of this hearing the Supreme Court had reluctantly entered into a "secret session” known as a Closed Material Procedure for the first time in its history, effectively barring the Bank from accessing the evidence against it. Lawyers for the Treasury had urged the justices to read a secret judgment from a lower court. As admitted by the Supreme Court judges, "Having held a closed hearing, it turned out that there had been no point in the Supreme Court seeing the closed judgment (which related to the secret intelligence) because there was nothing in it which could have affected (our) reasoning in relation to the substantive appeal.”
The Supreme Court was expected to order the British Government to pay Bank Mellat all of its legal costs and damages for the wrongful inclusion on the sanctions list over the last three years. "The ruling sends a strong message to the British government that political expediency is not a sufficient legal justification for sanctions against Iranian private businesses which operate out of Iran,” as per the IANS report.
In October 2009, Her Majesty’s Treasury had invoked section 7 of the Counter Terrorism Act, 2008 restraining the financial sector from any dealings with Bank Mellat. This was challenged by the Bank in the English High Court and thereafter in the Court of Appeal. But when they failed both times they replaced their earlier legal advisers with Zaiwalla and Company in 2010.
The first Asian to open a law firm in the city of London 30 years ago, over three decades Zaiwalla has been involved in over 1,000 international litigations and arbitrations in the fields of energy, maritime and construction and his clients range from the President of India to the government of the People’s Republic of China and the Iranian government to the Gandhis and the Bachchan families in India, as notes the firm’s website. Besides their primary office in the heart of London’s legal district, they have associate offices in Delhi, Bombay and Beijing.
In an article in The Law Society Gazette some months ago, Zaiwalla appreciated, "In the UK a lawyer does not have to lie for his client. He can protect the client’s interest by sheer intelligence and truth…I have a policy to be respectful and courteous to clients but to refrain from being personal friends while there is a professional relationship.” The Bombay born Zaiwalla was happy that he had not Anglicized the name of his firm because he believed that "people should know me as me.”