Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), stated that Nigeria was the victim of “a campaign of bribery and deception” concerning a collapsed gas processing project. This assertion was made as the country’s appeal against an $11 billion damages bill commenced in London’s High Court on Monday. In 2017, a London arbitration tribunal awarded $6.6 billion in damages to Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID), a little-known company based in the British Virgin Islands, for lost profits related to the failed project. With accrued interest, this amount has now increased to just over $11 billion, which represents approximately 30 percent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves.
Nigeria contends that the 20-year contract awarded to P&ID in 2010 was obtained through bribes paid to senior officials at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. Furthermore, the country alleges that when P&ID initiated arbitration for breach of contract, the company bribed Nigeria’s legal representatives, who subsequently failed to defend the case adequately. In written submissions to the court, P&ID denied these allegations, asserting that it did not pay bribes to secure the contract nor did it collude with Nigeria’s legal team during the arbitration process. P&ID maintains that Nigeria breached the contract and that it is entitled to enforce the tribunal’s award.
At the beginning of an eight-week trial, Mark Howard, representing Nigeria, informed the High Court that P&ID obtained its contract through “repeated lies and paying bribes to officials.” He further claimed that P&ID “corrupted” Nigeria’s lawyers to gain access to confidential documents during the arbitration. In court documents, Howard stated that P&ID paid bribes and relied on false evidence to deceive Nigeria, the tribunal, and the court, ultimately securing an extraordinary sum of money through a campaign of bribery, corruption, and deception. In contrast, P&ID argues that the gas processing agreement was a “genuine contract” that the company sincerely intended to fulfill.
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