Courts orders P&ID to pay Nigeria £20m as compensation
United Kingdom (UK) court has ordered Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) Limited to pay Nigeria the sum of £20 million as damages and compensation following the country’s victory in an $11 billion judgment debt heard in October.
The court directed the sum to be paid to Nigeria in the next 28 days.
The award of the £20 million as damages was disclosed during a consequential ruling on the matter in London, to find out what next after the October ruling.
Reports say the hearing was also to find out if P&ID would be given permission to appeal the case.
However, the Court refused to grant P&ID permission to take the matter back to arbitration, as it argued that P&ID’s conduct during the process was ‘reprehensible,’ hence the judgment.
Nigeria was seeking at least £20 million back from P&ID to cover its damages and legal fees.
Nigeria had in October, received great relief as the UK court set the country from its entanglement in the $11bn judgment debt previously awarded in favour of P&ID Limited.
In a judgment delivered by Justice Robin Knowles of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales, in the case between the Federal Government of Nigeria and P&ID, the court had upheld Nigeria’s prayer that the gas processing contract was obtained by fraud.
“In the circumstances and the reasons I have sought to describe and explain, Nigeria succeeds on its challenge under section 68. I have not accepted all of Nigeria’s allegations. But the awards were obtained by fraud and the awards were and the way in which they were procured was contrary to public policy,” Judge Knowles ruled.
The ruling followed a protracted five-year legal battle between P&ID and the Nigerian government.
P&ID had agreed with Nigeria in 2010 to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State, but the company said the deal collapsed because the Nigerian government did not fulfil its end of the agreement.
