A United Kingdom Court of Appeal has validated Nigeria’s claim for the payment of the post-judgment costs in the Process and Industrial Developments Company (P&ID) suit in pound sterling and not naira.
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), announced this in a statement on Friday by his media aide, Kamarudeen Ogundele.
He said upon Nigeria’s victory over P&ID’s $11 billion arbitral award against Nigeria, the firm was supposed to pay for Nigeria’s cost in the litigation as part of the penalties for the loss but opted to pay in naira.
“Today (being the 12th day of July 2024), the United Kingdom Court of Appeal validated Nigeria’s claim for the post-judgment costs to be paid in Pound Sterling (GBP), which P&ID tried to reduce drastically by claiming that Nigeria should only be entitled to recover its costs in naira, which evidently will produce a much lower cost.
“This was another misconceived and desperate attempt by fraudsters to deprive the Nigerian people of hard-earned public revenue. As a government, we are very determined to recover these costs and make P&ID and its US funders pay for their scam so as to serve as a deterrence to others of their ilk. We commend the dedication and tenacity of our legal team for this accomplishment,” the statement read.
A British Commercial Court had on December 9, 2023 refused a final appeal by P&ID seeking the award of $11 billion against Nigeria over the Federal Government of Nigeria’s termination of a 2010 gas contract.
The court also ordered P&ID to pay the sum of $20million in favour of Nigeria after 28 days over the failure of their claim against Nigeria.
