P&ID Vs Nigeria: UK Court Issues 28 Days To Irish Firm To Pay £20m Damages To Nigeria

Nigeria has recieved a fresh legal victory over Irish firm, Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) Industrial Developments (P&ID), after a London court awarded £20 million in damages and compensation in favour of the federal government.

Justice Robin Knowles of the Business and Property Court of England and Wales directed the firm to pay, within 28 days, the costs which Nigeria applied for to defray its legal fees.

The court had, on October 23, upturned an $11 billion judgment debt which P & ID wanted enforced against Nigeria.

Counsel to Nigeria, invoking the common law principle of “fraud unravels all” had argued that the award be set aside in its entirety.

However,P & ID applied to the court to appeal the October judgement.

In his final pronouncement on the case on Friday Knowles rejected a proposal by the firm to pay the costs in naira.

He also dismissed in its entirety the judgement debt which had been awarded against Nigeria by an arbitration tribunal.

The tribunal first issued a $6.6billion arbitration award against Nigeria in January 2017 after the firm accused the Federal Government of reneging on an alleged   2010 contract with  the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to  construct and operate a new gas processing facility in Calabar.

The award, according to P&ID lawyers claim, had  grown to $11.4 billion on account of  interest.

Nigeria subsequently approached the  Business and Property Court praying it to dismiss the award.