The United Kingdom Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by former Delta State Governor James Ibori challenging part of the calculation behind a £101.51 million confiscation order imposed on him following his conviction for fraud and money laundering offences.
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The three-member Court of Appeal panel, comprising Lord Justice Andrew Popplewell, Mr Justice Simon Bryan and Judge Nicholas Dean KC, rejected Ibori’s argument that it was disproportionate to apply an inflation-related adjustment to money held in bank accounts that had been frozen under restraint orders.
Ibori had sought to reduce the confiscation order by about £4.3 million, from £101,514,315.21 to approximately £97.21 million, arguing that certain restrained bank accounts had not earned interest or appreciated in value while frozen.
His appeal was limited to the application of the “change in value of money” adjustment, known as CVM, which is used to reflect changes in the value of money over time when calculating criminal benefit.
The Court of Appeal, however, held that applying the adjustment was consistent with the statutory confiscation regime and did not amount to a disproportionate interference with Ibori’s property rights.
“There is nothing disproportionate in applying the CVM uplift to assets subject to a restraint order merely because they have not increased in value by as much as the CVM, or at all, when restrained,” the court held.
Ibori’s lawyers had argued that because the restrained money could not be invested or used to generate returns while the accounts were frozen, increasing its value to reflect inflation effectively required him to account for gains he could not have made.
The court rejected that argument, holding that the confiscation regime is concerned with the value of the criminal benefit obtained and requires that value to be reflected in present-day monetary terms.
The judges further held that a confiscation order may be satisfied from any assets available to a defendant, whether those assets were themselves acquired through crime or were legitimately obtained.
They said the fact that Ibori might have to meet part of the inflation-adjusted amount from other assets was irrelevant to the calculation of the criminal benefit.
The court also noted that the restraint orders arose from Ibori’s criminal conduct and concerns that assets could be dissipated before the conclusion of confiscation proceedings.
According to the judges, the impact of the restraint on some of the accounts could have been avoided had Ibori acknowledged the relevant funds as criminal proceeds and agreed to surrender them earlier.
“The very lengthy delay in this case was entirely Mr Ibori’s fault in his persistent resistance to the making of the order,” the court said.
The appeal involved two categories of bank accounts.
The first concerned four Nigerian bank accounts which Ibori’s lawyers said did not earn interest. The inflation-related adjustment attributed to those accounts was £10,265.17.
The court said the evidence did not clearly establish when the accounts became effectively frozen or the precise period for which the adjustment applied, adding that it was more likely than not that the accounts had remained accessible to Ibori for years after the underlying frauds.
The second category involved seven accounts held by investment companies in Liechtenstein, Hong Kong, Austria and Nigeria, containing about £12.49 million.
The court found that those accounts were not themselves the criminal benefit on which the confiscation calculation was based. Instead, the relevant benefit related to funds paid into three Access Bank accounts in Nigeria in 2006.
The judges therefore held that Ibori’s argument in relation to those later accounts was misconceived.
“For these reasons Mr Ibori’s appeal is dismissed,” the court concluded, leaving the £101.51 million confiscation order intact.
Ibori served as governor of Delta State from 1999 to 2007. He was extradited from the United Arab Emirates to the United Kingdom in 2011 and, in 2012, pleaded guilty to offences including conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.
He was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment in April 2012.
The confiscation proceedings continued for several years after his conviction, culminating in July 2023 when the Crown Court at Southwark ordered him to pay £101,514,315.21, representing the criminal benefit established by the court.
The latest Court of Appeal judgment dealt only with Ibori’s challenge to the inflation adjustment used in calculating that amount and did not reopen his underlying conviction.
The dismissal means the £101.51 million order remains in force. Reuters reported that the confiscation process can now proceed unless Ibori pursues a further appeal to the UK Supreme Court. Ibori said he was consulting his lawyers on his next steps.
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