Nigeria Pays N200m Bond To UK Court Over Botched P&ID Contract
Nigeria has paid the $200 million bond to a court in the United Kingdom in its ongoing effort to vacate the $9.2 billion judgement debt against the country in favour of an Irish firm, Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) in the botched gas line deal.
In a statement weekend, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, described the development as a positive step for Nigeria to set aside the judgement.
According to Malami, the decision to provide the bond emanated from the British court’s acceptance of a request from Nigeria for a variation of the September decision of the court.
The court had ordered Nigeria to pay $200 million to the court, while permitting the stay of execution of the judgement.
The statement also said the Nigerian government “does not plan to forfeit the guaranteed sum to the High Court in UK.”
“The Federal Republic of Nigeria today provided the English High Court with a bank guarantee as a security in compliance with the Court order. This variation in security, which was proposed by Nigeria as an alternative solution during a procedural hearing on 22nd November, has been accepted by the Court and P&ID. The deadline was extended by the Court to the 28th of November.
“The provision of today’s security is a positive step forward for Nigeria to overturn the injustice of the US$9.6 billion award, which was a direct result of fraud and corruption.”
The statement reiterated the point raised by the Nigerian government that the contract was fictitious, even as the country continues to expend efforts towards ensuring the nullification of the contract.
“Over the last few weeks, investigations have revealed a very serious fraud, bringing into question both the legitimacy of the GSPA (gas supply and processing agreement) and the subsequent award itself.
“As a result of these investigations, the Federation has recently expanded its legal team, which will now enable us to launch in full our challenge against the fraudulently procured agreement and award,” the statement concluded.
It will be recalled that the UK court presided by Justice Butcher, earlier this year granted P&ID’s request to enforce a March 20, 2013 award against Nigeria by a District Circuit Court in Washington DC.
Nigeria was ordered to pay the Irish company $6.6 billion for the botched gas line contract but the payment accumulated to $9.6 billion due to interest accruals.
