January 25, (THEWILL) – The Process & Industrial Development Ltd. (P&ID) has accused Nigeria of a fictitious corruption claim against the $11bn arbitration award to discredit the gas supply contract it entered with the country.
The Nigerian government had accused P&ID of bribing government officials in Nigeria, to win a 20-year gas supply contract in 2010.
Nigeria’s legal team argued that When the contract failed, P&ID started an arbitration case and bribed officials working for President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration and colluded to win a $6.6bn arbitration award for lost profits in January 2017.
The interest on the $6.6bn awarded has risen by $4.4bn making the amount swell to $11.1bn.
Mark Howard, a lawyer for Nigeria, said in court, “There are many documents that are as close to a smoking gun as one will ever see in a fraud case.”
Howard argued there are multiple payments by P&ID that were allegedly bribes coded as “dash” and “Dublin expenses”.
He also said there is evidence of chats asking parties involved in the deal to delete and burn evidence
But in a counterclaim against the allegation, P&ID lawyer, David Wolfson, in a filing for the trial, described Nigeria’s bribery allegation as a fictitious claim motivated to discredit the gas supply contract it entered into with Nigeria.
The firm argued that Nigeria is a society “where the rule of law is patchy” and alleged that the Federal Government imprisoned people, who have relationships with P&ID.
“The villain of this case is not my client. Instead, it is the all too familiar story of institutional incompetence and buck-passing,” Wolfson said in court.
