A United Kingdom Court of Appeal has dismissed an application by Seamus Andrew, a director of Process and Industrial Development (P&ID), seeking permission to challenge a previous High Court ruling that overturned a $6.6 billion arbitral award—now worth over $11 billion with interest—granted against Nigeria.
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Mr Andrew, who became a director of P&ID in October 2017 after acquiring a stake through his company, Lismore Capital Limited, had filed an appellant’s notice to the UK Court of Appeal after Justice Robin Knowles of the High Court of Justice Business and Property Courts in London set aside the award in December 2023.
In their ruling on Tuesday, Lord Justices Sir Julian Flaux, Lord Phillips, and Lord Jeremy Baker found that Andrew’s appeal was not filed within the stipulated 21-day period and that he failed to follow proper procedures by bypassing the initial court in seeking permission to appeal.
Justice Knowles had originally ruled on 23 October 2023 that the arbitration award in favour of P&ID was obtained through fraud and corruption, including the bribery of Nigerian officials and the unlawful possession of privileged government documents.
The High Court found that P&ID had bribed Grace Taiga, former legal director at Nigeria’s Ministry of Petroleum Resources, in connection with a 2010 gas supply and processing contract. It further held that the company and its associates—including Mr Andrew—illegally retained confidential legal documents belonging to the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN), which were used during the arbitration proceedings.
“The obvious and correct inference is that [the documents] were obtained through corruption of [Nigeria’s] legal advisers carried out by P&ID and Mr Adebayo,” Justice Knowles noted, adding that no reasonable explanation had been provided by the company for the misconduct.
The controversial gas deal, signed in January 2010, required P&ID to construct and operate a gas processing facility in Cross River State using gas supplied by Nigeria from oil leases operated by Addax Petroleum. However, the project never took off, and P&ID accused Nigeria of breaching the agreement.
An arbitral tribunal in 2017 awarded the company $6.6 billion in damages, a figure that later rose to over $11 billion due to accrued interest. Nigeria challenged the ruling in 2019, arguing that the contract was obtained through bribery and that the arbitration was tainted by fraud.
Following a major legal battle, the London High Court ruled in Nigeria’s favour in 2023, describing P&ID’s actions as driven by “greed” and highlighting the devastating consequences such an award could have had on Nigeria’s economy and citizens.
In July 2024, P&ID’s initial effort to overturn that decision at the Court of Appeal was rejected. Tuesday’s ruling marks another significant legal victory for Nigeria, effectively closing the door on the company’s attempts to revive its multibillion-dollar claim.
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