Summary

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In July 2013, Leidos, Inc. (Leidos) won an arbitration award against the Hellenic Republic resulting from security work it performed in connection with the 2004 Summer Olympic Games held in Athens, Greece. The award consisted of €39,818,298 in damages and $162,500 in costs. Upon receiving the award, Leidos promptly petitioned the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to confirm and enforce it. After approximately three years of intermittent stays, status updates, motions and parallel litigation in Greek courts, the district court confirmed the arbitration award and entered judgment—in euros—in favor of Leidos.

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), Leidos then moved to convert the award into U.S. dollars based on the exchange rate ($1.3017 to €1) on July 2, 2013, the date of the original arbitral award. The district court granted the motion. Because the exchange rate had dropped 19.1 per cent from the award date to the judgment date ($1.0533 to €1 on January 6, 2017), the total dollar value of the conversion increased the value of the arbitral award by approximately $11.9 million. The Hellenic Republic appealed. For the following reasons, we conclude that the district court mistakenly granted Leidos's motion and we reverse.

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See also the TDM IACL Case Report Leidos Inc v The Hellenic Republic 2019 EWHC 2738 Comm - 17 October 2019 available at www.transnational-dispute-management.com/legal-and-regulatory-detail.asp?key=23116