After years of litigation, the Business and Property Court in London has pronounced its judgment in the protracted case between Nigeria and a UK-based company, Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) Ltd.
The judgment, which was in favor of Nigeria, was an $11 billion suit believed by Nigerians to be a distraction to the country’s recovery process, the outcome of the country’s corrupt elite, and the lethargic decision-making process of its leadership.
In 2017, a tribunal sitting in the UK issued a ruling asking Nigeria to compensate P&ID with $6.6 billion in damages, at a rate of 7%.
In 2020, following the court’s pronouncement, Judge Ross Cranston from the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales granted the application.
The pronouncement was heralded by Judge Robin Knowles judgment on the issue.
The case between Nigeria and P&ID Ltd. began in 2010, when P&ID was awarded a 20-year contract. The contract was to construct a gas processing facility in Calabar, Cross Rivers State, in the southern part of Nigeria. In the contract, they were legally empowered to operate it after construction.
According to P&ID, the deal fell through, claiming the failure of the Nigerian government to commit and uphold its part of the contract.
The Nigerian government had argued that the process leading to the award of the contract to P&ID was marred by corruption and needed to be discontinued.
The P&ID were vocal in their convictions. They sued the Nigerian government and subsequently won the case in court.
By today’s judgment, Nigeria has been absolved of the 2017 pronouncement and will not be compelled by any law to pay the $11 billion to P&ID.
