Corruption, corruption as Nigeria argues against $11 bn award to P&ID
It mainly stories of corruption and corrupt systems in the Africa’s biggest economy as lawyers stepped up arguments on the case of breach of contract between the federal government and Process and Industrial Development (P&ID)
Nigeria’s lawyers in the case declared in London’s High Court on Monday that the country was the victim of “a campaign of bribery and deception” in the contract which rolled off table as soon as the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari came to office in 2015.
The Buhari-led All Progressive Congress (APC) government allegedly cancelled the gas processing contract awarded by the preceding Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led administration of the federal government, amplifying the risk of doing business in the country by international players who fear political and policy inconsistency in the country.
The alleged breach of contract terms had earned P&ID princely an $11 billion in damages, rousing the government to belated action in challenging the decisions of the London arbitration tribunal which in 2017 awarded $6.6 billion in damages to P&ID for lost profits related to the failed project.
With interest, that has now swelled to just over $11 billion, or around 30% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves.
Federal government alleges the 20-year contract awarded to P&ID in 2010 was procured by bribes paid to senior officials at its Ministry of Petroleum Resources. It also alleges that, when P&ID took Nigeria to arbitration for breaching the contract, P&ID bribed Nigeria’s legal representatives, who then did not properly defend the case.
P&ID has, in written submissions to the court, denied it paid bribes to procure the contract or that it colluded with Nigeria’s legal team during the arbitration, arguing that Nigeria breached the contract and it is entitled to enforce the tribunal’s award.
At the start of an eight-week trial, Mark Howard, representing Nigeria, told London’s High Court that P&ID obtained its contract “by telling repeated lies and paying bribes to officials”, and then “corrupted” Nigeria’s lawyers to obtain confidential documents during the arbitration.
Howard added in court documents that P&ID paid bribes and relied on false evidence “to dupe (Nigeria), the tribunal and this court into giving P&ID an extraordinary amount of money on the back of a campaign of bribery, corruption and deception”.
P&ID, however, argues the gas processing agreement was “a genuine contract which P&ID genuinely wanted to perform”.
Its lawyer, David Wolfson, said in court documents that Nigeria’s loss in the arbitration “had nothing to do with any corruption”.
