|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Federal Government has said it will demand damages from Process & Industrial Developments Limited, which lost its $11bn arbitration award against Nigeria on Monday in the United Kingdom.
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, who disclosed this said there will be further hearing by the United Kingdom court on the heels of this judgment to determine costs payable by P&ID and others in the matter.’’
The Business and Property Court in London had on Monday halted the enforcement of the P&ID $11bn award against Nigeria in a case marked CL-2019-000752.
In the judgment delivered by Justice Robert Knowles, it was held that the process through which P&ID secured a 2010 contract to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State, was fraudulent.
The arbitration court had awarded $6bn against Nigeria in January 2017 over the failed gas processing contract but the fine had accumulated to $11bn before the verdict was delivered on account of the seven per cent interest rate.
Delivering the long-awaited ruling in the case on Monday, Knowles stated, that Nigeria succeeds on its challenge under Section 68.
Knowles also said the awards against Nigeria were obtained by fraud and the way in which they were procured was contrary to public policy.”
P&ID had claimed Nigeria violated the terms of its agreement by failing to provide gas for the power plant it wanted to build for the country.
According to the global firm, the alleged violation frustrated the construction of the gas project agreed to by the government of the late former President Umaru Yar’Adua and deprived P&ID of the potential benefits expected from 20 years’ worth of gas supplies with “anticipated profits of $5 to $6bn.”
The arbitral tribunal unanimously decided that the Nigerian government had repudiated the Gas Supply and Processing Agreement by its failure to perform its obligations under the agreement awarded to the P&ID in 2017.
An initial out-of-tribunal agreement for the payment of $850m was reached by a previous administration and the disbursement was passed on to the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Buhari, however, rejected the idea of paying the negotiated sum and challenged the enforcement of the award before the English Commercial Court.
The judge granted Nigeria’s request for a stay on any asset seizures while its legal challenge was pending, but ordered it to pay $200m to the court within 60 days to ensure the stay, including some court costs to P&ID within 14 days.
A statement by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, quoted Tinubu as saying, “This landmark judgment proves that nation-states will no longer be held hostage by economic conspiracies between private firms and solitarily corrupt officials who conspire to extort and indebt the very nations they swear to defend and protect.
Tinubu commended the Nigerian legal team and acknowledged the roles of the Federal Ministry of Justice and the office of the AGF in defending the country’s interest in the case.