In a significant legal decision, a UK court has sided with Nigeria in a case concerning an $11B arbitral award, declaring it fraudulent. Law.com reports that the judgment involved law firms Mishcon de Reya, which represented Nigeria and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, which had replaced Kobre & Kim as P&ID’s representatives.
Judge Knowles, in his judgment, stated, “I have not accepted all of Nigeria’s allegations. But the awards were obtained by fraud and the awards were and the way in which they were procured was contrary to public policy.” P&ID, an engineering company based in the British Virgin Islands, had entered into a 20-year contract with the Nigerian government in 2010 to build a natural gas processing plant that never came into being. This eventually led to an arbitration process in 2016 that first resulted in a $9.6 billion arbitral sum against Nigeria, which later escalated to $11 billion with interest.
Legal observers believe this verdict sends a message that nations must not hesitate in their efforts to eliminate historical corruption.