Nigeria Says It Won’t Negotiate P&ID’s $10-Billion Legal Claim
Nigeria Says It Won’t Negotiate P&ID’s $10-Billion Legal Claim
Nigeria said it won’t negotiate with Process & Industrial Development Ltd. over its $10 billion arbitration award, days after the country secured permission to challenge the claim.
“There will be no negotiation or talk of settlement with P&ID or any related party by or on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria,” Attorney General Abubakar Malami said in a statement emailed by his office Thursday. An arbitration panel convened over a soured gas-supply contract imposed the penalty in 2017 and a U.K. court upheld the award last year.
Nigeria is seeking to overturn the decision by arguing that evidence of corruption perpetrated by the British Virgin Islands-registered company has only recently been discovered. Last week, a British judge granted Nigeria’s request to take its fraud case against P&ID to trial. Settlement negotiations between the parties took place on several occasions before the panel issued the final award three years ago but failed to come to an agreement.
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