P&ID: Nigeria to Appeal $9 Billion Verdict

• P&ID: Nigeria to Appeal $9 Billion Verdict

The Federal Government of Nigeria has said that it will file a petition against the verdict by United Kingdom’s Business & Property Courts which awarded a total of $9 billion in favour of the Process & Industrial Development Limited (P&ID); an Irish firm, on Friday.

Confirming the development in a statement released on Friday, the Solicitor-General of the Federation, Mr Dayo Apata, said that the Federal Government is making serious efforts to defend its cause on the issue.

The verdict by the British court was as a result of a breach of contract in 2010 between the Federal Government and P&ID, concerning “a 20 year Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) in respect of an accelerated gas development project in Nigeria’s OMLs 67 and 123”.

Apata said that the collapse of the agreement led to an arbitration between the two parties to address the issue.

P&ID alleged that it incurred about $40 million in preliminary expenses while the Federal Government claimed that no construction was done for the project facility. The Irish firm also claimed to have lost profit for the entire twenty-year term of the GSPA, valued at $1.9 billion which was later increased to $5.9 billion after a judgement by the tribunal that the Federal Government had breached the contract.

Thereafter, the tribunal against the decision of the Federal High Court, ruled in favour of P& IDL on January 31, 2017, ordering that the company be paid a reward of $6.597 billion effective from March 20, 2013; along with a 7 per cent pre-award interest.

Explaining the consequence of such judgement, Apata said, “This interest has increased the size of the award to a sum in excess of $9billion,”

Apata said that the alleged damages were unreasonable, adding that, “the Government engaged the renowned US Law Firm US Law Firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP t to defend the interest of the FGN.”

He said, “The Law Firm has taken steps to defend the proceedings in the United Stated by urging the District Court to dismiss the P&ID application for enforcement of the award on the ground that Nigeria as a sovereign state has an absolute right to obtain an authoritative determination of its sovereign immunity. The FGN, therefore, demanded that the jurisdictional issue must be conclusively resolved before Nigeria may be required to litigate the merits of P&ID’s petition.”