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The Commercial Case Law Index is a collection of judgments from African countries on topics relating to commercial legal practice. The collection aims to provide a snapshot of commercial legal practice in a country, rather than present solely traditionally "reportable" cases. The index currently covers 400 judgments from Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
Get started on finding judgments that are relevant to you by browsing the topic list on the left of the screen. Click the arrows next to the topic names to reveal a detailed list of sub-topics. Most judgments are accompanied by a short summary written by subject-matter expert postgraduate students from the University of Cape Town.
COMPAGNIE GENERALE DE (NIG) LTD GEOPHYSIQUE vs. ALHAJI MUSA & OTHER (SC. 310/2008)[2017] NGSC 9 (23 June 2017) (SC. 310/2008) [1960] NGSC 1 (22 June 2017); 
CL Index Interlocutory Order Civil Remedies
In this case, the appellant appealed the decision of the lower court to strike out the appeal against the trial court’s interlocutory decision for being incompetent. This case illustrates how final and interlocutory orders are distinguished.
The court considered whether the Court of Appeal was right to hold that the appeal from the High Court on the issue of jurisdiction was interlocutory for which an appeal must be lodged within 14 days.
The court was called upon to determine whether or not a court’s decision is final in the course of determining the appeal. The court held that a final order at law was one which brings to an end the rights of the parties in the action. On the other hand, an interlocutory order was only intermediate and did not finally determine the rights of the parties in the action. The court held that this case was an interlocutory motion and the order that had been granted by the trial court was a final order. Therefore, an appeal on the order of the trial court was a right under section 220(1) of the Constitution.
The court also referred to Alor v. Ngene (2007) 17 NWLR (Pt 1062) 163 which provided that where a decision of a court finally and completely determined the rights of the parties, it was final, but if did not then it was only interlocutory. Thus, the court concluded that the trial court’s decision was interlocutory and could not be said to be perverse.
The court dismissed the application with parties bearing their own costs.