The Nigerian government has emerged victorious in a British court case, overturning an $11 billion (£9 billion) arbitration award that had been granted to a company in the aftermath of a dispute concerning a failed gas deal.
The award, initially granted in 2017 and subsequently augmented in 2019 to encompass interest, represented a substantial portion of Nigeria’s foreign reserves.
Monday’s decision is a part of the ongoing and lengthy legal dispute between the British Virgin Islands-based company Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) and the Nigerian government.
Nigeria’s legal representatives contended that P&ID had engaged in bribery to secure the contract and had manipulated lawyers to obtain confidential documents. P&ID refuted Nigeria’s accusations, attributing the failure of the gas agreement to institutional ineffectiveness.
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu expressed approval of the ruling by the Business and Property Court in London.
In his statement, he characterized it as a triumph for Africa and the developing world, asserting that they had endured “blatant exploitation” for an extended period.
The campaign group Spotlight on Corruption asserted that Nigeria’s economic future had been constrained by an arbitration award they claimed was predicated on bribery and falsehoods.
In the ruling issued on Monday, the judge determined that P&ID had indeed paid bribes to a Nigerian oil ministry official in relation to a 2010 gas contract. Furthermore, P&ID had omitted this crucial information when pursuing legal action against Nigeria after the gas deal’s collapse.
