From Godwin Tsa Abuja
Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi SAN has disclosed that the Federal government has recovered the sum $200 million and another $10 million award it deposited as bond in a UK court towards its defence of the $11 billion arbitral award to Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) Ltd.
Fagbemi, who commended President Bola Tinubu and the legal team for achieving this feat made the disclosure during a visit by a team of lawyers who defended the country in the UK to the Ministry led by Shaistah Akhtar.
The minister equally commended the efforts of Akhtar and a former Director of Legal in the ministry, Kofo Salam-Alada, in the legal victory and recovery of funds to the Federal Government.
“The whole country has celebrated our success in the Process & Industrial Developments Ltd (P&ID) case and applauded my resilience and determination not to negotiate or settle with the fraudsters but many do not know that my strength was derived from dedicated and uprightness of the FGN-P&ID coordinating team which was led by Kofo Salam-Alada who gave me the necessary support.”
Fagbemi also wished Salam-Alada happy retirement from the service, saying So, it is personally disheartening for me to bid Kofo farewell from the public service career, but I have taken solace in the fact that a golden fish has no hiding place and it therefore certain that the country will continue to beckon on him for the benefit of all Nigerians.
Speaking earlier, Akthar, who was accompanied by Lydia Allaby, explained that the $10m paid was to Nigeria from the $20m awarded in favour of Nigeria after P&ID lost the case. She, however, added that the outstanding $10m is a subject of legal challenge by the firm.
She noted that the Nigerian case was among the only 14% of successful challenges against arbitral award cases.
A Court of Appeal in the United Kingdom has dismissed the appeal of Process & Industrial Development, P&ID, on a previous judgment halting the enforcement of its $11 billion award against Nigeria.
In a unanimous decision, Lord Justice Snowden, the lead judge, permitted P&ID to appeal the judgment but dismissed the appeal.
The two other judges are Lord Justice Fraser and Julian Flaux.
P&ID had entered into a deal in 2010 to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State but the company said the agreement collapsed because the Nigerian government did not fulfil its end of the bargain.
The Nigerian government alleged that the gas deal was a scam conceived to defraud the country.
But P&ID denied the allegation and accused the Nigerian government of “false allegations and wild conspiracy theories”.
Consequently, P&ID took legal recourse and secured an arbitral award against the country.
On January 31, 2017, a tribunal ruled that Nigeria should pay P&ID $6.6 billion as damages, as well as pre and post-judgment interest at seven per cent, which later amounted to $11 billion.
In October 2023, Robin Knowles, justice of the commercial courts of England and Wales, halted the enforcement of the award by upholding Nigeria’s prayer that it was obtained by fraud and in violation of section 68 of the English Arbitration Act 1996.
The judge found that P&ID paid bribes to Nigerian officials involved in the drafting of the gas supply and processing agreement, GSPA, in 2010.
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