Shehu Sani, a former Kaduna Central senator, said the Process & Industry Development (P&ID) Limited judgement should serve as a big lesson to the Nigerian government.
Posting on X, Sani wrote: “It’s a big relief for Nigeria to win the P&ID case in London that would have led to the loss of $11 billion to a fraudulent deal. This should be a great lesson for the government on the need to exercise caution in the signing of deals with dubious foreign investors. Kudos to the legal team.”
Nigeria on Monday won its case against P&ID.
The victory comes after five years of legal fireworks. In the case marked CL-2019-000752, the Federal Government sought to overturn an arbitration award in favour of P&ID, which has now accrued interest worth $11 billion.
The company had claimed it agreed 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.
On January 31, 2017, a private arbitration tribunal ordered Nigeria to pay $6.6 billion to P&ID plus interest beginning on March 20, 2013.
However, Nigeria asked a London High Court to deliver a judgement in its favour.
Nigeria’s lawyer, Mark Howard, told the court that P&ID obtained its contract “by telling repeated lies and paying bribes to officials.”
In a judgment delivered via email, Robin Knowles, a 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.
