The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami has disclosed that Nigeria has secured an extension of time and relief from sanctions as United Kingdom Court ruled that it has established a prima facie case against the $9.6 billion judgment awarded to Process and Industrial Developments (P&ID).
Malami in a statement on Friday said the court granted Nigeria’s application due to the exceptional circumstances where the government has uncovered evidence of massive fraud in procuring the award.
He explained that the Court heard evidence from the government and the offshore shell company P&ID in relation to the gas supply and processing agreement (GSPA).
This agreement was entered into by the parties 10 years ago and which was never performed.
According to tom, the Buhari-led administration, having inherited the dispute from the previous administration, only recently uncovered evidence that the GSPA was a sham commercial deal.
He said the deal was designed to fail from the start, and that its subsequent arbitral award was based on fraud and corruption.
The Justice Minister noted that the government relied on a number of ongoing investigations across multiple jurisdictions, including the U.., to build its case.
He said that the government would proceed to a full trial of the issues, where government’s substantive application to finally set aside the award would be heard.
He added that the government of Nigeria was pleased with the outcome from the High Court hearing.
“This is a major victory in our ongoing fight against the vulture-fund-backed P&ID, to overturn the injustice of the multi-billion dollar arbitral award.
“In light of the new and substantive evidence presented regarding P&ID’s fraudulent and corrupt activities, the Court has granted our application for an extension of time to hear our challenge out of normal time limits.
“The Federal Government will now proceed to a full hearing of our fraud challenge in the coming months,” he said.
The judge, Sir Ross Cranston in his ruling granted Nigeria’s application and set aside the $9.6 billion award to P&ID against the country.
He ruled that Nigeria successfully established a prima facie case of fraud against P&ID in the gas supply contract.
