NewsP&ID Vs Nigeria: Trial Will Expose Corruption 'On An Industrial Scale' -...

P&ID Vs Nigeria: Trial Will Expose Corruption ‘On An Industrial Scale’ – British Lawyer

December 03, (THEWILL) – Mark Howard, a British lawyer representing Nigeria in a case between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Irish firm, Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID), on Friday, said the trial would reveal corruption “on an industrial scale,” not only of Nigerian officials but also of British lawyers.

The case stems from a contract for a gas project awarded by Nigeria in 2010 to P&ID.

In 2010, the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources signed a contract for the construction and operation of a new gas processing facility with P&ID, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

Under the contract, Nigeria was to supply natural gas (“wet gas”) at no cost to P&ID’s facility. For its part, P&ID was to construct and operate the facility. It would process the gas to remove natural gas liquids—which P&ID was entitled to—and return lean gas to Nigeria at no cost, which would be suitable for use in power generation and other purposes

The gas processing facility never materialised, for reasons that are disputed.

In August 2012, P&ID initiated arbitration, alleging that Nigeria had repudiated the contract.

The private arbitration tribunal orders Nigeria to pay P&ID just under $6.6 billion with interest accruing from March 20, 2013, at a rate of seven per cent, which now stands at nearly $11 billion.

In August, Nigeria levelled fresh claims of fraud against P&ID, which earlier won the $11 billion arbitration award against the country.

The Federal Government had sought to convince a UK High Court that the contract was a scam ab initio.

The lawyers representing the Nigerian government told Sir Ross Cranston, head of the court, that P&ID knew from the beginning that there was no deal, noting that it was only a facade to fleece the Nigerian people.

P&ID, founded by the late Michael Quinn and Brendan Cahill, the lawyers told the court, had no intention to perform any obligation concerning the purported contract, the reason the company went about bribing Nigerian government officials at the time.

Nigeria alleged in its amended case filed in July that during arbitration proceedings, which ran for five years until 2017, two men who owned and worked for P&ID “obtained privileged and/or confidential documents” about the government’s entry into the 2010 gas deal, its strategy for defence and discussions about striking a settlement.

An eight-week trial is due to start in January with witnesses appearing in per­son as well as remotely from Ireland and Nigeria.

At a pre-trial review on Friday, Howard told the court that evidence of “widespread corruption and bribery on an industrial scale” would be put forward.

“Our case is it was bribery to get the contract, ongoing bribery to keep everyone on board, bribery of lawyers”, he said, alleging that two London-based British lawyers previously involved in the case had committed “serious misconduct”.

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