By Fowowe, Adetomiwa Isaac*
- Introduction
Both Nigeria and the United Kingdom (UK) have been active when it comes to legislation recently. Nigeria itself underwent thorough revamping when it updated nearly 20-year-old laws with its Arbitration and Mediation Act, 2023, which brings the country in line with international norms. This complete overhaul resolved basic flaws in the Nigerian arbitration system, providing strong platforms for both domestic and international arbitrations. Conversely, on August 1, 2025, the United Kingdom will formally be more surgical in its implementation of a more refined approach through its Arbitration Act, 2025. The UK did not contemplate wholesale reform but, instead, tackled particular practical segments pinpointed in the course of years of judicial interpretation and stakeholder feedback. This article explores these opposing schools of thought and highlights major innovations in the 2025 Act in the UK that Nigeria can borrow strategically to complement its just-implemented arbitration system and to consolidate its status as an arbitration hub in Africa.
- Overview of Both Legal Frameworks
The evolution of arbitration laws in the UK and Nigeria shows different approaches to reform; the UK has chosen to refine its arbitration laws more gradually with the Arbitration Act of 2025, while Nigeria has chosen to completely overhaul its laws with the Arbitration and Mediation Act of 2023. Though their approaches and points of emphasis are very different, both legislative initiatives seek to modernize their countries’ arbitral regimes in accordance with international best practices.
- Nigeria
The 2023 Act of Nigeria introduces a radical change to the decades-old Arbitration and Conciliation Act, Cap A18 2004, and represents a more modern and flexible system. The Act is greatly correlated with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law, which is an indication that Nigeria is aspiring to international requirements of arbitrations. Notably, it is modelled on a dual-track system: it combines arbitration and mediation in a single legal instrument.[1]
The most notable ones are the express provisions of emergency arbitration whereby parties may obtain interim relief before a full tribunal is composed, a feature that improves party protection and procedural efficacy.[2] An accelerated procedure is also a feature of the Act, intended to speed up proceedings where there is a justifiable case, and there is also a forward-looking provision of statutory recognition of third-party funding so that those with fewer means can also access arbitration easily.[3] On top of this is that the Act reinforces the judicial backing of arbitration, makes settlements of mediation enforceable, and increases arbitrator autonomy and disclosure necessities.
- United Kingdom
By comparison, the UK 2025 Act is not a free-standing statute but a focused amendment to the Arbitration Act 1996. What this strategy does is maintain the stability of a reputable system and polish up the features that needed explanation or renewal. Some of these significant reforms are the provision of the default rule, namely that the law of the seat applies to the arbitration agreement; the legal obligation of disclosure, which applies to what arbitrators “ought reasonably to be aware”; and the expanded protection of arbitrators, specifically resignation or removal application. The Act also allows the tribunals to dispose of meritless claims summarily in a move that will be efficient and cost-effective.
- Areas Where Nigeria Can Learn from the Uk
While Nigeria’s 2023 Act is a comprehensive reform, the UK’s 2025 Act introduces targeted improvements aimed at boosting efficiency and clarity. Several of these refinements offer useful lessons for Nigeria. This section highlights key areas, such as summary dismissal, disclosure duties, arbitrator immunity, jurisdictional challenges, and cost allocation, where Nigeria’s regime could benefit from adopting elements of the UK’s more focused approach.
- Summary Dismissal Powers
Section 39A of the Arbitration Act, 2025, introduced in the UK, is a substantial procedural innovation, which formally authorizes arbitral tribunals to order a summary rejection of claims or defenses that have little chance of success. It is comparable to the rules of civil procedure on summary judgement, in recognition that arbitration lacks the rigidity of the court system and must have a means of deterring abuse in the form of frivolous or wholly unmeritorious claims.
The practice of the UK is in consideration of experience, as weak claims have in the past resulted in prolongation of proceedings and resulted in enlarged costs, hence impairing the efficiency features of arbitration. The Act gives legal certainty and procedural clarity, on a statutory basis, as to the tribunal’s power to conclude the disposition of likewise hopeless cases at an early stage, which was previously a matter of the tribunal’s inherent powers to manage its cases or the agreement of parties.
Conversely, the Arbitration and Mediation Act 2023 of Nigeria has no explicit express option of summary dismissal. Although Section 15 gives tribunals extensive powers to manage cases, and Section 31 deals with the determination of rules of procedure, neither of them expressly confers a power to make an early disposal of unmeritorious claims. This exclusion could be a sign of Nigeria giving preference to the thorough dispute resolution rather than the scenario of its fast-tracking or merely the reflection of a droughting error.
The lack of power to summarily dismiss claims in Nigerian arbitration may become an issue since the jurisdiction attempts to be considered as an attractive option in international business-related disputes. Tribunals are likely to fear throwing the baby out with the bathwater of weak claims being rejected without any express statutory power and possibly weaken the effectiveness of arbitration through delaying tactics. Nigeria might want to adopt similar provisions, as this is the best way to have its arbitration practice capable of handling the unmeritorious claims without infringing the provisions on due process.
- Arbitrator’s Duty of Disclosure
The Arbitration Act, 2025 of the UK adds Section 23A, codifying arbitrators’ duty of disclosure as a major step toward modernizing the common law provisions developed in Halliburton v Chubb[4]. This provision entails arbitrators revealing any circumstances which may cause a reasonable doubt in the minds of arbitrators to have justifiable doubts in regard to their impartiality, and gives certainty in regard to arbitrators under the question of arbitrator impartiality.
Significantly, it further targets the state of knowledge of the arbitrator, that he or she is obliged to disclose as to what the arbitrator knew and what the arbitrator “ought reasonably to be aware”.[5] This objective requirement has set a greater diligence criterion as it entails placing greater demands on arbitrators to make reasonable inquiries into possible prejudice instead of focusing exclusively on immediate memory.
Similar disclosure requirement made under Section 8 of the Arbitration and Mediation Act, 2023 in Nigeria provides that when circumstances exist that are “likely to give rise to justifiable doubts as to his impartiality or independence”[6], such circumstances must be disclosed. Nigerian provision, however, does not go as far as the UK in having constructive knowledge of what arbitrators ought reasonably to know. This is one of the fundamental disclosure profiles.
The statutory codification of the UK implies that the arbitrators will disclose possible conflicts out of reasonable inquiry and not actual knowledge as in Nigeria. In the case of Nigeria, this shortcoming neutralizes its desire to establish itself as an arbitration center of Africa West. Standards of disclosure in arbitrations are also becoming a major consideration in international commercial parties as to the choice of arbitration seats, especially cases of high value dispute whose undisclosed conflict might cause arbitration awards to be struck down. Use of the higher UK standard would provide many benefits to Nigeria: greater credibility among the users of international arbitration, and fewer challenges to awards upon the grounds of arbitrator conflicts.
- Jurisdictional Challenges
The Arbitration Act, 2025 in the UK proposes substantial amendments in Section 67 jurisdictional challenges that create a more rigid model integrating to stop strategic manipulation of the appeal process. The reforms eliminate the introduction of new evidence or arguments by the losing parties seeking a challenge under Section 67[7], thus eliminating full re-hearings as well as delays and unnecessary expenses. Evidence may not be re-examined other than in exceptional cases in the interest of justice and the courts can now consider only new arguments or facts in very few instances.[8]
The reform touches upon this key deficiency in that parties sometimes had a sort of a second chance to seek justice by offering new information or arguments in courts; whereas, they had specifically kept it aside withholding it in front of tribunals. An opportunity to proceed further with new arguments or even evidence is now restricted to exceptional cases only and possibility of inadmissible and wasteful repetition becomes remote since no re-hearings are provided anyway.
Nigeria, on the contrary under Section 14 of the Arbitration and Mediation Act, 2023 does not restrict the types of review that can be conducted by the courts regarding the decision on jurisdiction nor does not exercise any limitation on the quality of evidence that can be used. This opens the possibility of strategic gamesmanship in which parties may save their most advantageous jurisdictional arguments until the court so as to degrade the sitting tribunal and extend the dispute. The procedure employed in Nigeria invites sabotage, in the form of negligible cases being put forward by parties calculated to delay the opponent by getting it into tribunals of inferior jurisdiction, with the seat of real justice still before them in the higher courts.
- Costs Where Tribunal Lacks Jurisdiction
The Arbitration Act 2025 decreased a certain procedure gap faced in the UK, with Clause 6 confirming that in circumstances where the tribunal or court decided that the tribunal was not called upon to address a dispute, the tribunal could nevertheless order the cost of arbitration proceedings that have followed up to that moment.[9] This rule fortifies the position that those parties, which have spent legitimate resources in defending meritorious jurisdiction contests, will not find themselves in the situation where, despite the fact that the tribunal did not end up having substantive jurisdiction to resolve the matter, they are left without something to enforce.
The said reform addresses real world remedies of injustices in that parties who succeed in defending frivolous jurisdiction challenges were not able to recoup their fees when no jurisdiction was discovered by the tribunal. The UK provision does not relate to the limited authority allowed to tribunals when it comes to allocating the costs even where it does not have substantive jurisdiction so that parties are not allowed to pass off jurisdictional technicalities to evade costs implications.
In the district of Nigeria, Arbitrations and Mediation Act, 2023, no such provision exists. Section 50 allows a tribunal to award costs but this is an issue when courts later decide that the tribunal was not entitled to make jurisdiction. Where there is no valid award owing to jurisdictional errors, the provisions on cost allocation are pointless and the parties will have no recourse to the costs that they have incurred throughout proceedings. Such a loophole leaves behind perverse incentives within the Nigerian system. The parties can also institute toothless jurisdiction issues with the anticipation of losing in the hope that other parties cannot revive them to recover the cost in the event that the tribunal is later held to have no jurisdiction. This type of tactical maneuvering kills the two principles of efficiency and fairness of arbitration.
- Expanded Arbitrator Immunity
The UK Arbitration Act, 2025 enhances the scope of arbitrator immunity through Clause 4, providing express protection for arbitrators who resign or are subject to removal applications, unless they have acted in bad faith or unreasonably.[10] Specifically, the amendments ensure that arbitrators are shielded from personal liability for costs in court proceedings aimed at challenging their role, and from claims arising out of resignations made in good faith. This development is intended to safeguard the independence and confidence of arbitrators, protecting them from intimidation tactics by dissatisfied parties and encouraging experienced professionals to accept appointments without fear of legal reprisal.
In contrast, the Nigerian Arbitration and Mediation Act, 2023 offers a more limited form of immunity. Section 13(1) provides that arbitrators shall not be liable for anything done or omitted in good faith in the discharge of their functions. However, this protection is general and does not explicitly extend to the cost implications of resignation or removal-related court proceedings. Section 13(3) further allows arbitrators to resign with the permission of the parties or the court, and Section 12 permits party applications to the court for removal on grounds such as justifiable doubts as to impartiality. Notably, the Act does not shield arbitrators from cost liabilities in such scenarios. Nigeria can adopt from the UK’s model by explicitly codifying broader immunity that balances accountability with the need to protect arbitrators from vexatious litigation and cost risks.
- Conclusion and Recommendations
Main conclusions are drawn out of this comparative analysis. An effective balance of powers in the UK includes a summary dismissal, additional arbitrator disclosure requirement, additional immunity laws, cost recovery systems, and limited jurisdiction challenges, which work to counter practical inefficiencies that are unintentionally missed in a whole system transformation in Nigeria. The targeted solutions avoid tactical abuse, minimize delays and boost party confidence, which are key success drivers to competitiveness of international arbitration.
The selective gaps identified in Nigeria should be addressed through amendments. The top-priority reforms are: statutory enabling of tribunals to summarily dismiss meritless claims; the higher level of disclosure standard used in the UK that has arbitrators investigating potential conflicts; even to resignation and removal proceedings, immunity should be extended; even absent jurisdiction, the procedure to recover costs should be provided; and, finally, the tactics to delay jurisdictional challenges should be limited.
Instead of waiting to revise such laws thoroughly, these should be possible to implement by either specific changes or judicial interpretation. The current refinement practice would consolidate the advantage gained by Nigeria as the leading arbitration center in West Africa and not interfere with the structural integrity in the 2023 Act. It is not complete overhaul but strategic improvement in line with the international best practices in terms of efficiency and credibility.
* Fowowe, Adetomiwa Isaac can be reached via fowowe.adetomiwa@gmail.com
[1] Ekeke, Alex Cyril. “Alternative Dispute Resolution in Commercial Contract under the Arbitration and Mediation Act, 2023: Averting Litigation and Enhancing Stability.” Journal of Commercial and Property Law 11, no. 2 (2024): 24-30.
[2] Ubanyionwu, Chima Josephat. “Analysis of the Evolution of Arbitration and Other Alternative Dispute Resolution Modes in Nigeria.” AJLHR 7 (2023): 136.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Halliburton Company (Appellant) v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd [2020] UKSC 48
[5] Section 23A(3), Arbitration Act, 2025.
[6] Section 8(1), Arbitration and Mediation Act, 2023.
[7] Section 67(3C), Arbitration Act, 2025.
[8] Section 67(3C)(b), Arbitration Act, 2025.
[9] Section 61, Arbitration Act, 2025.
[10] Section 29, Arbitration Act, 2025.
