The High Court held that Russia could not rely on state immunity to resist enforcement of two Dutch awards, because the exception to state immunity in Sect. 9(1) of the State Immunity Act 1978 (SIA) applied, which provides that when a state has agreed to arbitration it is not immune as regards proceedings in the UK courts which relate to the arbitration. Russia could not argue in this respect that it had not in fact agreed to arbitration, because this argument had been raised in annulment proceedings in the Netherlands, and had been rejected by the Dutch courts, giving rise to issue estoppel.