The Federal Government has won its claims against Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) Limited.

I delivered the judgment after five years of legal fireworks.

A judgement delivered by Justice Robin Knowles of the Business and Property Court via email, on Monday held that P&ID obtained its multi-billion-dollar arbitration award against Nigeria by fraud.

P&ID was awarded a 20-year contract in 2010, to construct and operate a gas processing plant in southern Nigeria, as part of a wider plan to exploit Nigeria’s abundant reserves of gas.

After the deal collapsed, P&ID took Nigeria to arbitration in London and on January 31, 2017, was awarded $6.6 billion for lost profits – a sum which has swelled with interest to over $11 billion beginning from March 20, 2013.

With the interest rate fixed at seven percent amounting to $1 million a day, the potential payment had accumulated to over $11 billion before the verdict.

Following the judgment, Nigeria applied for an extension of time and relief from sanctions.

The application was granted by Ross Cranston, a judge of the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, in September 2020, thereby returning the case to arbitration.

Nigeria had alleged that the gas deal was a scam conceived to defraud the country.

Lawyers representing the federal government told the court that P&ID officials paid bribes to secure the contract.

But P&ID denied the allegation and accused the Nigerian government of “false allegations and wild conspiracy theories.”