A Court of Appeal in the United Kingdom has dismissed the appeal of Process & Industrial Development, P&ID, on a previous judgment halting the enforcement of its $11 billion award against Nigeria.
In a unanimous decision, Lord Justice Snowden, the lead judge, permitted P&ID to appeal the judgment but dismissed the appeal.
The two other judges are Lord Justice Fraser and Julian Flaux.
P&ID had entered into a deal in 2010 to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State but the company said the agreement collapsed because the Nigerian government did not fulfil its end of the bargain.
The Nigerian government alleged that the gas deal was a scam conceived to defraud the country.
But P&ID denied the allegation and accused the Nigerian government of “false allegations and wild conspiracy theories”.
Consequently, P&ID took legal recourse and secured an arbitral award against the country.
On January 31, 2017, a tribunal ruled that Nigeria should pay P&ID $6.6 billion as damages, as well as pre and post-judgment interest at seven per cent, which later amounted to $11 billion.
In October 2023, Robin Knowles, justice of the commercial courts of England and Wales, halted the enforcement of the award by upholding Nigeria’s prayer that it was obtained by fraud and in violation of section 68 of the English Arbitration Act 1996.
The judge found that P&ID paid bribes to Nigerian officials involved in the drafting of the gas supply and processing agreement, GSPA, in 2010.
He also found that P&ID was illegally in possession of Nigeria’s privileged legal documents during the arbitration hearings.
The judge ordered that the company pay £43 million in compensation to Nigeria as legal fees and disbursements.
The judgment of the UK court of appeal was delivered on Friday.
In a copy of the judgment published on the UK judiciary website, one of the issues raised in the P&ID appeal bordered on whether the lower court was wrong to order the £43 million legal cost to be paid in British pound sterling and not in naira.
The company argued that Nigeria funded its legal services by exchanging naira from its consolidated revenue fund.
