Nigeria, P&ID await London court’s judgment tomorrow

The Business and Property Courts of England and Wales sitting in London is set to deliver judgement tomorrow in the case filed by Nigeria seeking the dismissal of an $11billion arbitration award in favour of Process & Industrial Development Ltd.

Justice Robin Knowles is scheduled to deliver judgement at 2pm,according to the courts’ cause list dated October 20.

The court will decide whether Nigeria is liable to pay the money which the British Virgin Islands incorporated company calls compensation for alleged breach of a gas contract.

A separate London court first issued a $6.6billion arbitration award against Nigerian 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.

The award, P&ID lawyers claim, has grown to $11.4 billion on account of interest.

Nigeria approached the Business and Property Courts praying it to dismiss the award.

Lawyers representing the Federal Government premised their case on the allegation that the purported contract was a product of dishonesty and manipulation engineered by the foreign firm.

Specifically, Nigeria said P&ID bribed certain government officials to procure the purported contract and to ensure that the country would not contest the arbitration vigorously.

In September 2020, the English High Court held that there was a ‘strong prima facie case’ that the contract was procured by bribes and that P&ID’s main witness in the arbitration gave perjured evidence.

This was after Nigeria was able to provide the court with banking records from New York showing fund transfers to Nigerian government officials by entities allegedly affiliated with P&ID, as well as evidence of large, unexplained cash withdrawals from a P&ID affiliated entity’s Nigerian bank account around the time the contract was signed.

It was on that basis that the issues proceeded to a full hearing at the Business and Property Courts to determine whether the award should be set aside.

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

In practical terms the company was to process the gas for the purpose of removing natural gas liquids and return lean gas to Nigeria at no cost.

The understanding was that the lean gas so supplied would be suitable for use in power generation and other purposes.

Nigeria insisted that the contract was based on an unsolicited proposal presented by P&ID.

It also said no tender was conducted in respect of the project and the company even had no experience or assets in the gas sector to handle a contract of that magnitude.

It also had no website. Only a few employees.

Although the ‘agreement’ provided that the ‘contract’ would be governed by Nigerian law it curiously said whatever dispute that arose would be resolved through arbitration in London.

The company launched the legal battle in August 2012 when it filed arbitration papers in London , accusing the Federal Government of repudiating the contract .