P&ID vs Nigeria: UK Judge Slams Nigeria for Corruption, Poor Legal Team
By Reporter
Honourable Justice Robin Knowles, the UK judge who overturned the controversial $11 billion arbitral award against Nigeria in the P&ID case, has blamed Nigeria’s poor defense on corruption and weak legal representation as well as the arbitration tribunal, concluding that, their failures enabled “unrealistic” damage claims to go unchallenged.
He also accused Nigerian officials of supporting P&ID with privilege documemts that enabled the firm to secure award through fraud.
Justice Knowles spoke at the Roebuck Lecture hosted by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London last June 18, said he “struggled to accept what happened” before finally setting aside the award in 2023.
He described the case as one of the most troubling he had encountered in international arbitration.
It will be recalled that the contractual dispute arose from a 2010 gas supply agreement between the Nigerian government and Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID), which failed to be implemented.
Dissatisfied, P&ID approached a tribunal and was awarded $6.6 billion in 2017, with interest pushing the figure to over $11 billion by 2023.
However, Justice Knowles ruled in October 2023 that the award had been secured through fraud, citing bribery of Nigerian officials and P&ID’s possession of privileged documents.
Casting his mind back on the arbitration, Knowles faulted Nigeria’s legal representatives for failing to challenge the inflated claims presented by P&ID’s experts properly.
“The conduct and effort of Nigeria’s lawyers at the quantum stage deserved severe criticism,” he said.
