After over five years of legal fireworks, Nigeria has finally succeeded in halting the enforcement of the $11 billion arbitration award to Process and Industrial Developments P&ID in the case marked CL-2019-000752.
The federal government had asked the court to overturn an arbitration award in favour of P&ID which after accruing interest, was worth $11 billion.
The company claimed it entered into an agreement with Nigeria to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River state, but the deal collapsed because the Nigerian government did not fulfil its end of the bargain.
In a judgment delivered by email, Robin Knowles, justice of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales, upheld Nigeria’s prayer on the ground that the ill-fated gas processing contract was obtained by fraud.
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 seven percent amounting to $1 million a day, the potential payment had accumulated to over $11 billion before the verdict.