After almost six years of legal engagement, Nigeria has finally succeeded in halting the enforcement that would have cost the Nigerian government $11 billion being arbitration award in favour of Process and Industrial Development, P&ID. This walk over against the company did not come to all patriotic Nigerians as a surprise.

As a background, in 2017 an arbitration tribunal ordered Nigeria to pay $6.6 billion to P&ID following the collapse of a contract between the group and Nigeria’s petroleum ministry. The award increased to $11 billion with interest.

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Last week’s judgment delivered by Robin Knowles, a Justice of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales, upheld Nigeria’s prayer on the ground that the $11 billion award was obtained by fraud.

In accepting Nigeria’s argument, Justice Knowles put three options: to return the award to the tribunal, in whole or in part, for reconsideration; to set the award aside in whole or in part; or to declare the award to be of no effect, in whole or in part.

Fortunately, the court had also ruled that P&ID illegally had access to Nigeria’s internal documents and retained them so as to monitor Nigeria’s position and awareness as the arbitration continued all these years in an attempt to fraudulently and controversially obtain billions of dollars from Nigeria through the courts.

Further saving the Nigerian government and citizens from this monumental fraud by P&ID, the Judge ruled that the 2010 gas contract at the centre of the long-running saga involving Nigeria and Process & Industrial Development Limited, P&ID was “fraudulent.”

Interestingly and beyond the corruption-tainted contract, the judge indicted P&ID for improper retention of Nigeria’s Internal Legal Documents that it had received during the arbitration. This lasted from 22 August 2012 to Final award on 31 January 2017.

The Judge further ruled that Nigeria’s right to confidential access to legal advice was utterly compromised throughout all or most of the Arbitration. “It is now apparent that through the course of the Arbitration, P&ID was provided with many of Nigeria’s internal legal documents.”

Between 2012 and 2017, these materials monitored by P&ID showed that Nigeria had no awareness that its former legal adviser, Grace Taiga, had been bribed when the gas contract came about and that bribery or corrupt payments continued to buy her silence. Ms Taiga was a former legal adviser to Nigeria’s petroleum ministry.

“Indeed they were bribing or making corrupt payments to keep the truth concealed and through retention of Nigeria’s Internal Legal Documents, were monitoring Nigeria’s awareness of the truth.

“I trust that these two regulators of the legal profession in England & Wales will consider the professional consequences of the conduct of Mr Burke KC and Mr Andrew (P&ID) lawyers in relation to Nigeria’s Internal Legal Documents.”

A private arbitration tribunal had on January 31, 2017 ordered Nigeria to pay $6.6 billion to P&ID plus interest beginning from March 20, 2013.

With the interest rate fixed at 7% amounting to $1 million a day, the potential payment had accumulated to over $11 billion before the verdict.

It will be recalled that Nigeria filed an appeal against the enforcement of the arbitration award and the UK commercial court granted the country the relief in September 2020, returning the matter to the high court for trial.

When the matter came to the notice of then President Buhari, he vowed to take all necessary diplomatic and legal means to prevent Nigeria’s assets from being seized, and in one of his speeches to the United Nations, President Buhari issued a stinging rebuke of P&ID. The government seems to have adopted the strategy to go down fighting, with an Abuja Court permitting them to seize P&ID’s local assets, and the EFCC arraigned P&ID directors, James Nolan and Richard Quinn.

Interestingly, Nigeria remained on the offensive, bolstered by President Buhari’s conviction that the whole matter is a scam.

It is very heart-warming that the tremendous support given to Nigeria’s legal team by President Buhari then has yielded result since the contract and the arbitration award had been procured through “an audacious fraud on Nigeria”. Nigeria would not have gotten Justice at the London Court but for the support, steadfastness, patriotism and un precedented leadership provided to the country’s legal team by PMB.

President Bola Tinubu in his response to the judgement while applauding it added: “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 stated.

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