• Hausa Edition
  • Podcast
  • Conferences
  • LeVogue Magazine
  • Business News
  • Print Advert Rates
  • Online Advert Rates
  • Contact Us
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Leadership Newspapers
Read in Hausa
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Health
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Football
  • Others
    • LeVogue Magazine
    • Conferences
    • National Economy
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Health
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Football
  • Others
    • LeVogue Magazine
    • Conferences
    • National Economy
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Leadership Newspapers
No Result
View All Result

Nigeria To Overturn $11bn P&D Arbitration

by Chika Izuora
2 years ago
in Business
Arbitration
Share on WhatsAppShare on FacebookShare on XTelegram

The federal government will, on Monday mount a high-stakes attempt at London’s High Court to overturn an $11bn arbitration award that left it owing more than a quarter of its foreign reserves to an obscure oil and gas company.

Advertisement

The legal dispute, which has dragged for more than a decade, centres on a contract that Federal Government officials struck with Michael Quinn, an Irish former band manager, and his business partner Brendan Cahill, to help the country turn its vast reserves of natural gas into power.

Quinn and Cahill’s offshore company, Process & Industrial Development, in 2012, began arbitration proceedings against Nigeria for breach of contract. P&ID ultimately won a $6.6bn award from a panel of arbitrators in London, one of the biggest known payouts to a company from a sovereign state.

That bill has risen to $11bn with interest more than Nigeria’s most recent budget for health, education and justice ministries combined.

Nigeria is now seeking to persuade the High Court that the successful arbitration claim was built on “a massive fraud perpetrated by P&ID” in collusion with former Nigerian government officials. It claimed that the deal was “procured by bribes” and the arbitration “tainted,” in court filings from 2020.

RELATED

Sokoto Gov’t Settles N500m Outstanding Fees For Foreign Students

Turkish Airlines Named ‘Expatriate Airline Of The Year’ At TEBA 2025

17 hours ago
Africa’s Investment In Blockchain Technology Increased By 1668% – Report

Interstellar To Address $5bn Currency Barrier In Africa With Blockchain Solution

23 hours ago

A spokesman for Nigeria’s president declined to comment and the justice ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

“The stakes in this colossal dispute could not be higher for the Nigerian people, who stand to lose the equivalent of nearly a third of the country’s entire budget for 2023 to a small offshore company with opaque ownership structures,” said senior legal researcher at anti-corruption group Spotlight on Corruption, Helen Taylor.

“The astounding allegations in this case also raise uncomfortable questions at home about whether the UK legal system was used as the unwitting vehicle for an elaborate $11bn fraud,” Taylor added.

The trial, expected to last eight weeks, will hear evidence from individuals including Dublin-based Cahill; Grace Taiga, a former legal services director at Nigeria’s petroleum ministry, and former P&ID director James Nolan, who will give evidence from a confidential location via video link.

Quinn, who managed bands in 1960s Dublin before transforming himself into an industrial consultant for projects in Nigeria, died in 2015. Court filings submitted by Nigeria say the company he co-founded is now controlled by Lismore Capital and VR Advisory, a hedge fund that specialises in distressed debt.

P&ID claims Nigeria invented the accusations of corruption to avoid paying what it legally owes. “P&ID vigorously denies that the awards in its favour should be set aside”, a company spokesperson said, adding: “P&ID will present its submissions and evidence to the English High Court in support of its defences.”

Arbitration awards are notoriously difficult to overturn. But Nigeria was granted a lifeline in 2020 when a London High Court judge granted it more time to pursue a challenge on the basis of alleged corruption.

The judge, Sir Ross Cranston, said there was “a strong prima facie case that the [project] was procured by bribes paid to insiders as part of a larger scheme to defraud Nigeria”. He found there was also a “strong prima facie case” that Quinn had given “perjured evidence to the tribunal” to “give the impression that P&ID was a legitimate business and was able and willing to perform the [contract] “.

Sir Ross also found there was “a possibility” that Olasupo Shasore, Nigeria’s lawyer for part of the arbitration, “had been corrupted”. The judge pointed to payments made by Shasore, a former attorney-general of Lagos state, to two lawyers involved in the proceedings, and agreed there was a “strong prima facie case” that the payments were designed “to purchase their silence”. Shasore has in newspaper reports vehemently denied wrongdoing.

Nigeria said in a statement that it “keenly awaits the opportunity to present its case before the High Court in London and is confident that justice will finally be served”.


We’ve got the edge. Get real-time reports, breaking scoops, and exclusive angles delivered straight to your phone. Don’t settle for stale news. Join LEADERSHIP NEWS on WhatsApp for 24/7 updates →

Join Our WhatsApp Channel



SendShareTweetShare
Previous Post

Kaduna Electric Caution Against Politicising Power Supply Challenges In Kaduna

Next Post

Tinubu Can’t Afford To Lose FCT,  Minister Tasks Campaign

Chika Izuora

Chika Izuora

You May Like

Sokoto Gov’t Settles N500m Outstanding Fees For Foreign Students
Business

Turkish Airlines Named ‘Expatriate Airline Of The Year’ At TEBA 2025

2025/07/11
Africa’s Investment In Blockchain Technology Increased By 1668% – Report
Business

Interstellar To Address $5bn Currency Barrier In Africa With Blockchain Solution

2025/07/11
NGO Sensitises Lagos Residents On Dangers Of Consuming SSB
Business

Beverage Industry Group Challenges WHO’s Call for Increased Sugar Drink Taxes

2025/07/11
5 Most Lucrative Businesses In Nigeria For 2024
Business

Naira Cuts Back Gains as Traders Foresee Stability

2025/07/11
Electricity Deficit: Ex-NDPHC Boss Urges PPP, Independent Transmission Project Model
Business

Electricity Deficit: Ex-NDPHC Boss Urges PPP, Independent Transmission Project Model

2025/07/11
Solar To Energise 380m Africans By 2030 — World Bank
Business

World Bank Flags Nigeria’s Governance Woes Despite Modest Policy Gains

2025/07/11
Leadership Conference advertisement

LATEST

ADC Presidential Ticket: Atiku, Obi, Amaechi, Others To Sign Agreement

Trump Surveys Texas Flood Damage With 120 Dead, 160 Missing

Visa Cut Not Linked To Reforms, Diplomatic Tensions, Says US Embassy

Cult Activities And Related Matters

Buhari: Bare-Faced Lie At Shehu’s Book Launch

Senate Observes One-Minute Silence For 2-year-old Allegedly Killed By NDLEA Operatives

Container Schools Offer Lifeline To IDP Children

Lawyers, Politicians Rally Behind Women’s Reserved Seat Bill

Gov Fintiri Imposes Curfew On Lamurde LG

Buhari Vows To Be Neutral As Ex-Aides Battle Tinubu

© 2025 Leadership Media Group - All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Health
  • Entertainment
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Football
  • Others
    • LeVogue Magazine
    • Conferences
    • National Economy
  • Contact Us

© 2025 Leadership Media Group - All Rights Reserved.