By Sunday Ani
The candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 presidential election, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has congratulated Nigerians and the Federal Government for winning the $11 billion legal battle with the Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) company in a London court.
Recall that the Federal Government of Nigeria had, earlier today, Monday, won its case against the P&ID in a Business and Property court in London presided over by Justice Robin Knowles of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales.
In the case marked CL-2019-000752, the Federal Government sought to overturn the $6.6billion arbitration award in favour of P&ID in 2017. The award has continued to accrue interest since then and has now brought the current total before the judgment to approximately $11 billion.
The court declared that it did not find any merit in the charges of bribery levelled against the former Attorney-General of Lagos State, who was representing Nigeria in the arbitration, Mr. Olasupo Shasore (SAN), .
The dispute dates back to 2010 when the P&ID Limited entered into a gas supply and processing agreement with Nigeria, with plans to establish an Accelerated Gas Development project in Cross River State. The project never materialized, and P&ID subsequently accused Nigeria of breaching the contract terms. The company claimed that Nigeria violated the terms of its agreement by failing to provide gas for the power plant it wanted to build for the country. In 2015, P&ID won a judgment for a $10 billion compensation.
This frustrated the construction of the Gas Project agreed to during the government of former president Umaru Yar’Adua and deprived the P&ID the potential benefits expected from the 20 years worth of gas supplies with “anticipated profits of $5 to $6 billion.”
Former president Goodluck Jonathan’s government reached an out-of-tribunal agreement for the payment of $850 million and passed on disbursement to the administration of President Mohammed Buhari.
Buhari refused to pay the negotiated sum, set aside the settlement agreement and challenged the enforcement of the award before the English Commercial Court. But the London court added $2.4 billion in interest making it $9bn.
However, earlier today, Judge Knowles ruled that the award was obtained by fraud and what has happened in the case is contrary to public policy.
Reacting to the development, Adebayo in his official X handle, @Pres_Adebayo, wrote: “Adebayo congratulates Nigerians on $11bn victory against fraudsters in P&ID case.”
