This is an interlocutory appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division. The appellant is judgment debtor to a judgment delivered by the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, (Commercial Court) London, United Kingdom, while respondent herein is the judgment creditor to the said foreign judgment, which obtained in 1991.
In-1993, the judgment creditor brought a motion on notice in the High Court a State, holden at Lagos, seeking an order of that Court to register the judgment in question pursuant to the provisions of the Foreign judgment (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act, Cap. 152 of the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990.
Being dissatisfied with the ruling, the judgment debtor appealed to the Court of Appeal. He also filed a motion on notice in that Court in which he inter alia prayed for -
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An order staying execution of the order made in this suit on the 14th of December, 1993 by the Honourable Justice A. B. Adeniji of the High Court of Lagos sitting in Lagos wherein he ordered the registration of the foreign judgment of the High Court of Justice of the Queen's Bench Division of England pending the determination of the appeal filed in this Honourable Court."
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After filing series of affidavits, counter-affidavits and replies to counter – affidavits, motion was heard by the Court of Appeal and a considered ruling was delivered on the 25th day of June, 1995 by Pats-Acholonu, J.C.A. (with whom 'she then was, and Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, J.C.A. concurred).
He dismissed the application in a somewhat lengthy ruling dealing in some respects with the substance and merit of the appeal which the Court of Appeal was yet to hear and determine.
The appellant was dissatisfied with the refusal of the application for stay and the order for the deposit of the judgment sum in court. He therefore appealed against same to the Supreme Court, contending that the Court of Appeal should have granted the application for stay, that after refusing the application it ought not have ordered for the judgment sum to be deposited in court since he did not ask for that relief and that the Court of Appeal was wrong in making an order for the deposit of the judgment sum in court when the said sum is in foreign currency.
