BUSINESS

October 23, 2023

P&ID judgment removed risks to Nigeria’s assets abroad – AGF

Lateef Fagbemi

—Says FG rebuffed approach for settlement

Johnbosco Agbakwuru

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, judgment of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, Monday said that the Robin St John Knowles of the United Kingdom Commercial Court setting aside the arbitral award of $11 billion in favour of Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) for an alleged breach of a Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) has freed assets of Nigeria and its agencies around the world from the risks they had been exposed to.

Fagbemi, who stated this while briefing State House correspondents at the presidential villa in Abuja, said despite dragging the government to court for an agreement it purportedly entered into with the ministry of Petroleum Resources to establish a gas processing plant in Calabar, P&ID never ever secured any land site.

He noted that the UK High Court ruled that Nigeria’s challenge to the arbitration award granted against it to an obscure hedge-fund-backed BVI shell entity P&ID in 2017 has been successful.

The AGF said: “The Arbitral Award had over the years placed the assets of the FRN and those of its agencies all over the world at the risk of attachment, erosion of foreign reserves and distortion of monetary, fiscal and other policies of government with attendant dire consequences for Nigeria and its people.”

According to him this emphasized the need for the federal government to vigorously challenge and resist the enforcement of the award by P&ID.

He pointed out that Monday’s judgment found that the award had been obtained by fraud and in a way which was contrary to public policy.

In particular, he added, the Judge concluded that P&ID obtained the award only by “practicing the most severe abuses of the arbitral process.”

He further quoted the judge as saying: “That this case has also, sadly, brought together a combination of examples of what some individuals would do for money. Driven by greed and prepared to use corruption; giving no thought to what their enrichment would mean in terms of harm to other.”

Fagbemi said for the present administration, “it has been a night of long knives! This success marks the culmination of over a decade of legal action and is not just a victory for the people of Nigeria, but any similar