The award was won through deception, according to a ruling made on Monday, October 23, 2023 by United Kingdom, UK Judge Robin Knowles of the Business and Property Court in London, and what transpired in the case was against public policy.
The arbitral tribunal awarded P&ID $6.6 billion in 2017 after deciding unanimously that the Nigerian government had repudiated the Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) by failing to uphold its duties thereunder. The total cost of the penalties and interest has now reached $11.5 billion.
An earlier administration came to an early out-of-tribunal agreement for the payment of $850 million, and the payout was given to President Muhammad Buhari's administration. However, Buhari refused to pay the agreed-upon amount, revoked the settlement agreement, and appealed the award's execution to the English Commercial Court.
The London court, however, added $2.4 billion in interest, making the total $9 billion. While the legal challenge is continuing, the judge accepted Nigeria's request for a delay on asset seizures, but stipulated that it must pay $200 million to the court within 60 days to secure the stay. Additionally, it has a 14-day deadline to pay some court costs to P&ID. The court's decision transformed an arbitration award held by P&ID into a court judgment, enabling the British Virgin Islands-based company to attempt to seize foreign assets.
Nigeria started looking into P&ID through the EFCC after becoming alarmed by the dubious and hollow nature of its claims. They discovered proof of two bank transfers totaling $20,000 made by Dublin-based Industrial Consultants (International) Ltd., a member of the P&ID group of businesses, to Grace Taiga, a Nigerian government attorney who oversaw the awarding of the gas plant contract.
Through its attorney, Bala Sanga, the EFCC disputed the payments, claiming they were made in 2017 and 2018 from an Industrial Consultants account at Allied Irish Banks and were ostensibly for "medical costs". Nigeria filed fraud challenges against P&ID based on this new evidence, which the EFCC deemed to be "seismic," but the business hasn't responded to the allegations. At various levels of court in Abuja, major suspects who are allegedly connected to the fraud are still being tried.
Sanga had noted that "it is increasingly clear that this was a highly orchestrated scam" in several of his court appearances on behalf of the EFCC. The Commission had also noted that P&ID's attorneys had failed to demonstrate that the company had obtained a 20-year contract for hundreds of millions of Naira in a genuine and legal manner.
"The organization has yet to even show that they have the qualifications to carry out such a complicated arrangement, let alone offer any proof of concrete investment or land ownership. The award in question, which is equivalent to more than eight times Nigeria's annual health budget, might currently be utilized for far more significant and urgent public needs, it stated.
Nigeria "does not even have the capacity to pay the judgment debt," the EFCC continued. If Nigeria lost the appeal, its international assets, including its oil cargoes and P&ID, were meant to be taken; but, according to the Monday verdict, both domestic and foreign Nigerian assets are safe.
On October 18, 2021, Justice D.U. Okorowo of the Federal High Court, Abuja re-arrested two British nationals, James Richard Nolan and Adam Quinn (who is still at large), for their alleged involvement in the contentious Process and Industrial Development gas processing contract, which resulted in the $9.6 billion arbitral award to P&ID Limited by a United Kingdom commercial court.
The defendants, who are both directors of the designated non-financial institution (DNFI) Goidel Resources Limited and the ICIL Limited, were charged with money laundering on a 32-count basis. They are still being tried.
