The awards made by the corporation against Nigeria were gained fraudulently, according to the judge.
Nigeria has been granted permission to enforce an arbitration award of $11 billion made by Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) Limited, according to Justice Robin Knowles of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales.
Nigeria was successful in preventing the enforcement of the award, which had initially favoured P&ID, with the ruling being delivered physically in open court and electronically via email to the parties on Monday.
The judge ruled that the award made by the corporation against Nigeria was obtained fraudulently.
“Nigeria prevails on its challenge under section 68 in the circumstances and for the reasons I have endeavoured to describe and explain. I don’t agree with all of Nigeria’s claims. However, the Awards were obtained fraudulently, and both the Awards’ acquisition and the method by which it occurred were against public policy, according to Justice Knowles’ ruling.
In order to build a processing plant in Calabar, the capital of Cross River State, the P&ID and Nigeria signed a Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) in January 2010. However, the deal fell through in August 2012, and the company then filed arbitration claims against Nigeria at the London Court of International Arbitration, seeking $5.96 billion in damages from Nigeria.
Nigeria was required to pay the firm $6.6 billion plus interest beginning in May 2013 after the arbitration determined that the country had broken the terms of the agreement in January 2017. The seven percent interest, which is pegged at $1 million per day, had accumulated to almost $11 billion before the ruling.
After Nigeria filed an appeal against the enforcement of the award, the court in September 2020 granted the country’s request for relief. The Nigerian side stated that there was sufficient proof that the arbitration award and the contract were obtained fraudulently.
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The Nigerian side then requested that the award be overturned, arguing that some of the defendants in the case were facing money laundering and graft trials.
The judge concurred in his decision that the arbitration awards were obtained fraudulently and that the way they were obtained was against public policy.
“Section 68 should have been available to preserve the rule of law,” he said. “What happened in this case is very bad indeed.
- Section 68(3) stipulates:
“(3) If a serious irregularity affecting the tribunal, the proceedings, or the decision is demonstrated, the court may—”
“(a) return the award to the tribunal for review, in whole or in part,
“(b) put aside the award entirely or partially, or
“(c) declare the award to be completely or partially without effect.
The court must be convinced that it would be improper to refer the relevant issues to the tribunal for reconsideration before using its authority to set aside or declare an award to be entirely null and void.
“Lord Wolfson KC urged me in concluding that, should my decision favour Nigeria, which it does, to leave over the issue of the order the Court should make so that the parties would have a chance to make their case after taking the decision into account. I will listen to that argument as soon as it can be scheduled since I respect that request.
