A judge in London passed an order on Friday that calls out the Nigerian government to pay $9 billion in assets to Process & Industrial Developments Ltd. (P&ID), a small natural gas company, over a failed natural gas deal, reported BBC.
Back in 2010, P&ID had reached a deal with the Nigerian government to build a natural gas plant, but the deal fell through two years later. The deal provided for P&ID to build a state-of-the-art gas processing plant in the southern Nigerian city of Calabar to refine natural gas that the government would have used to power its national electric grid.
But the arrangement fell through in 2012 and the company sued the Nigerian government for breaching the agreement by failing to provide the gas or install the pipelines it had promised to build.
An arbitration tribunal in London awarded P&ID $6.6 billion (5.9 billion euros) in damages in January 2017. With interest payments, the total now amounts to $9 billion, equivalent to some 20 percent of Nigeria’s foreign reserves.
The Friday ruling converts the arbitration award to a legal judgment, which would allow P&ID to try to seize international assets.
The Nigerian government lawyers argued the London court did not have the jurisdiction to settle the dispute as the original deal was made under Nigerian law and the seat of the arbitration was Nigeria.
But Justice Christopher Butcher disagreed with the arguments and ruled in favor of P&ID.
“I am prepared to make an order enforcing the final award,” he said in his ruling statement. “I will receive submissions from the parties as to the precise form of order appropriate.”
A lawyer representing P&ID said the company will soon begin the process of seizing Nigerian assets in order to satisfy this award.
Dayo Apata, the Nigerian government’s solicitor general, said the government would appeal against the decision.
