{"id":68691,"date":"2019-08-27T16:43:52","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T15:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=68691"},"modified":"2019-08-27T16:43:52","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T15:43:52","slug":"nigeria-to-appeal-9-6billion-judgement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/nigeria-to-appeal-9-6billion-judgement\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria To Appeal $9.6billion Judgement"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Federal Government has assured Nigerians that there is no imminent threat to Nigeria\u2019s assets in spite \u00a0of the recent award of 9.6 billion dollars judgment debt by a UK court over a botched contract.<\/div>\n
\n

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed gave the assurance on Tuesday in Abuja at a news conference on the court ruling authorising Process and Industrial Developments Ltd. (P&ID) to seize 9.6 billion dollars in Nigerian assets.<\/p>\n

The briefing was jointly addressed by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN).<\/p>\n

Also at the briefing were the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajia Zainab Ahmed and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele.<\/p>\n

Mohammed noted that contrary to reports in certain quarters, the country is not about to lose any of its assets to P&ID.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first instance, the enforcement of the award cannot even commence now because the Judge in the UK court ordered that P&ID cannot enforce the judgment against Nigeria until after the court resumes from its current vacation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this means is that enforcement action cannot begin until further hearing on the matter, which will take place on a date to be determined by the court upon its resumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Federal Government, therefore, wishes to use this opportunity to assure Nigerians that there is no immediate threat to Nigeria\u2019s assets as has been wrongly interpreted by a section of the media.<\/p>\n

\u201cNigerians should be assured that the Federal Government is taking all necessary steps to appeal the decision of the UK Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government will seek for a Stay of Execution of the decision, to defend its rights and to protect the assets of the people,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

The minister assured that the Federal Government would avail itself of all defence customarily afforded to sovereign states under the United Kingdom Sovereign Immunity Act to stave off any enforcement of the award.<\/p>\n

He, therefore, appealed to the sense of patriotism of the media in the reportage of the sensitive matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is capable of threatening the very existence of the country, especially as some media outfits have clearly thrown overboard objectivity and patriotism in their very biased reporting of this matter,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

Mohammed said experts\u2019 analysis of the damages awarded by the court, showed that \u201cit was clearly unreasonable, unjustifiable and manifestly excessive and exorbitant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe damages over-compensated P&ID on a frankly gargantuan scale and imposed a punitive award on Nigeria.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Narrating the issues that led to the judgment, the minister said it was fallout of the contract purportedly entered into in 2010 between the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and P&ID<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a 20-year Gas Supply Processing Agreement (GSPA) purportedly entered into with the P&ID in 2010, the company never performed as agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the contract having suffered a setback, the case went to arbitration. P&ID\u2019s claim in the arbitration proceedings was mainly for the loss of profit for the 20-year term of the GSPA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an interim award, the Arbitration Tribunal ruled that Nigeria has breached the contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough Nigeria successfully applied to have that award set aside by the Federal High Court in Lagos, the Tribunal ignored this decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsequently, on January 31, 2017, the Tribunal rendered its final award against the Ministry of Petroleum Resources in the sum of 6.597 billion dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was in addition to pre-award interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum, effective from March, 20 2013 and post-award interest at the same rate from the date of the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis interest increased the size of the award to 9.6 billion dollars,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

The minister said that after the arbitration award in 2017, Nigeria made several attempts to negotiate the award and resolve the whole issue amicably with P&ID but to no avail.<\/p>\n

He said following an enforcement proceedings instituted simultaneously by the company in the UK and the U.S. the government engaged the services of the U.S. law firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP.<\/p>\n

The minister also reiterated government\u2019s position on the underhanded manner in which the contract was negotiated and signed.<\/p>\n

He said indications were that the whole process was carried out by some vested interests in the past administration.<\/p>\n

Mohammed said the saboteurs colluded with their local and international conspirators to inflict grave economic injury on Nigeria and its people.<\/p>\n

He said following President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s directive, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was conducting investigations into the company and the contract agreement.<\/p>\n

The minister said the investigation was being conducted by EFCC in conjunction with the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Inspector-General of Police (IGP).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Federal Government has assured Nigerians that there is no imminent threat to Nigeria\u2019s assets in spite \u00a0of the recent award of 9.6 billion dollars judgment debt by a UK…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\nNigeria To Appeal $9.6billion Judgement - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/nigeria-to-appeal-9-6billion-judgement\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nigeria To Appeal $9.6billion Judgement - 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