UK Court Awards £20m To Nigeria In P&ID Case Victory

UK Court Awards £20m To Nigeria In P&ID Case Victory

Nigeria has secured a recent legal triumph against the Irish company, Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID), as a London court granted £20 million in damages and compensation in favor of the federal government.

Justice Robin Knowles of the Business and Property Court of England and Wales ordered the firm to pay the costs, which Nigeria sought to cover its legal fees, within 28 days.

On October 23, the court overturned an $11 billion judgment debt that P&ID sought to enforce against Nigeria.

In his final ruling on Friday, Knowles rejected the firm’s proposal to pay the costs in naira and entirely dismissed the judgment debt awarded against Nigeria by an arbitration tribunal.

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Nigeria’s counsel, invoking the common law principle of “fraud unravels all,” argued for the complete setting aside of the award.

However, P&ID applied to the court to appeal the October judgment.

The tribunal initially issued a $6.6 billion arbitration award against Nigeria in January 2017 after the firm accused the Federal Government of reneging on an alleged 2010 contract with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to construct and operate a new gas processing facility in Calabar.

According to P&ID lawyers, the award had grown to $11.4 billion due to interest.

Nigeria then approached the Business and Property Court, requesting the dismissal of the award.

The court upheld Nigeria’s prayers, revealing that the firm had paid Nigerian officials to draft the contract agreement.

It also found that P&ID was illegally in possession of Nigeria’s privileged legal documents during the arbitration hearings.

Nigeria presented banking records from New York to the court, demonstrating fund transfers to Nigerian government officials by entities allegedly affiliated with P&ID. Additionally, evidence of large, unexplained cash withdrawals from a P&ID-affiliated entity’s Nigerian bank account around the time of contract signing was provided.

According to the terms of the purported contract, Nigeria was to supply natural gas at no cost to P&ID’s facility, while the company would construct and operate the facility.

The company was to process the gas to remove natural gas liquids and return lean gas to Nigeria at no cost, suitable for use in power generation and other purposes.

Nigeria insisted that the contract was based on an unsolicited proposal from P&ID and highlighted that no tender was conducted for the project. Furthermore, the company had no experience or assets in the gas sector to handle a contract of that magnitude.

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