UPDATED
A report reaching SecuredNaija news desk confirms that Nigeria has won a judgement in the $11bn P&ID case delivered today in London.
A UK judge has dismissed the $6.6billion arbitrary judgment against Nigeria of which interests have ballooned to $11.5 billion, won by briefcase company Process & Industry Development (P&ID) Ltd, over a failed 2010 deal to develop a gas processing plant.
Judge Robin Knowles of the Business and Property Court in London court which sat remotely and behind closed doors, ruled that the award were obtained by fraud and what has happened in the case is contrary to public policy.
Nigeria had been embroiled in a fight with Process & Industrial Developments over a failed 2010 deal to develop a gas processing plant over which it was inflicted a $9bn judgment which has now risen to $10bn. P&ID claimed Nigeria violated terms of its agreement by failing to provide gas for the power plant it wants to build for the country.
This frustrated the construction of the Gas Project agreed to during the government of former president Umaru Yar’Adua and deprived P&ID the potential benefits expected from 20 years’ worth of gas supplies with “anticipated profits of $5 to $6 billion.”
Nigeria went to court to contest this 2017 arbitration ruling –– which, with interest, has now almost doubled to $11 billion instead of $6.6 billion –– arguing that it shouldn’t have to pay since Process & Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID), registered in the British Virgin Islands, obtained the contract through bribing government officials. P&ID denies any form of bribery in the gas contract.
However, Nigeria then began investigating the company through the EFCC and found evidence of two bank transfers totalling $20,000 made by Dublin-based Industrial Consultants (International) Ltd. — part of the P&ID group of companies — to Grace Taiga, a Nigerian government lawyer who oversaw the award of the gas plant contract.
The payments, in 2017 and 2018, were made from an Industrial Consultants account at Allied Irish Banks and were purportedly for “medical costs,” Bala Sanga, the lead prosecutor, said in the interview.
Based on this new evidence, it called ‘seismic’ Nigeria filed fraud challenges against P&1D.
This case has generated headlines worldwide, but the testimony from the eight-week trial in London sheds unprecedented light on apparent bribery and other questionable business practices by P&ID and its sister company, Industrial Consultants International Limited (ICIL).
The co-founder of the offshore firm has admitted in a London court that the company and its affiliates had previously engaged in financial misconduct and deception –– including unexplained payments to senior officials, and falsifying invoices. The company innitially won a controversial $6.6 billion arbitration award after arguing that Nigeria failed to fulfill an energy contract.
But, in this most awaited ruling of the year, Nigeria has won.
More details later
