The Nigerian Government has won a landmark victory over a firm known as Process & Industrial Development (P&ID) Limited.
Judge Robin Knowles of the Business and Property Court in London, in his ruling overruled the $11.5 billion (USD) award plus accumulated interest, previously won by P&ID against Nigeria over a failed 2010 deal.
The deal was mooted to build a gas processing plant, but the judge ruled for Nigeria on the premise that the award was obtained by fraud.
Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu in his reaction the landmark judgement in a statement via his spokesman Ajuri Ngelale.
President Tinubu commended the UK Court for prioritizing the merits of the case above all other considerations.
“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”, Tinubu stated.
“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.
“Nigeria is appreciative of the tremendous efforts of the defense team and acknowledges the role of the Federal Ministry of Justice and the Office of the Attorney-General in the process of defending Nigeria’s interest in this case,” the President concluded.
It would be recalled that on January 31, 2017, a private arbitration tribunal ordered Nigeria to pay $6.6 billion to P&ID with interest beginning from March 20, 2013.
The potential payment had accumulated to over $11 billion before the verdict with the interest rate fixed at seven percent amounting to $1 million a day.
Judge Robin Knowles, Justice of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales, had in a judgement delivered by email, upheld Nigeria’s prayer on the ground that the ill-fated gas processing contract was obtained by fraud.
