…President Tinubu lauds judgement.
On Monday, Justice Robin Knowles of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales stopped Nigeria from paying an $11 billion [N8.4 trillion] arbitration award to Process & Industrial Developments [P&ID] Ltd., a company based in the British Virgin Islands.
The legal wrangling between the Nigerian government and the company dates back to 2012 after a gas processing contract signed in 2010 went south.
P&ID entered into an agreement with Nigeria in 2010 to construct and operate a new gas processing facility in Calabar, the capital of Cross River State.
In August 2012, P&ID initiated arbitration, alleging that Nigeria had repudiated the contract.
At that time, P&ID had not commenced construction of the facility or even purchased a site on which the facility could be built.
Yet, it argued that it stood ready to carry out its obligations under the contract and that the project foundered due to Nigeria’s failure to perform its side of the deal.
On January 31, 2017, an arbitration tribunal in London awarded P&ID $6.6 billion in damages with an interest rate of 7% p.a.
The amount has since accumulated to $11 billion.
In his judgement, Judge Robin Knowles of the Business and Property Court in London found that the massive arbitration award in favour of P&ID Ltd. was tainted by bribes.
“The awards were obtained by fraud and the awards were and the way in which they were procured was contrary to public policy,” the Judge said.
Meanwhile, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has lauded the judgment, describing it as a “victory for our long-exploited continent.”
A statement signed by presidential spokesperson Ajuri Ngelale on Monday quoted President Tinubu as saying, “This landmark judgment proves conclusively 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.”
“Today’s victory is not for Nigeria alone. It is a victory for our long-exploited continent and for the developing world at large, which has for too long been on the receiving end of unjust economic malpractice and overt exploitation,” the statement added.
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