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British court’s ruling on P&ID saga ‘right, just’ —Presidency
The presidency said on Friday the British court’s judgment which granted Nigeria’s application for an extension of time and relief from sanctions in a $10bn arbitration case with Process and Industrious Development (P&ID) had given the Federal Government relief to further protect national assets from criminally-minded organisations and individuals.
A court in the United Kingdom had on January 31, 2017, ordered the country to pay P&ID the sum of $6.6 billion as damages, with a seven percent post-judgment interest by a tribunal.
However, the federal government approched the court with a view to establishing that the contract in dispute was awarded on illegal terms, and that the officials of the company paid bribes to secure the contract.
In its response to the British court’s ruling, the presidency in a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said the judgement was “right, just and provides a strong prima facie case that the fraudulent gas deal with P&ID and the subsequent judgment debt of $10bn against Nigeria was a clear attempt to cheat the country of billions of dollars by a company that had not invested one Naira in the country.”
READ ALSO: Nigeria secures relief in $10bn P&ID judgment
The statement read: “On the arbitration award, it is a source of huge satisfaction that the UK Court, among others, had ruled that:
“Nigeria has established a strong prima facie case that the Gas Supply and Processing (GSPA) was procured by bribes paid to insiders as part of a larger scheme to defraud Nigeria.
“There is also a strong prima facie case that that (P&ID) main witness in the arbitration, Mr Quinn, gave a perjured evidence to the Tribunal, and that contrary to that evidence, P&ID was not in the position to perform the contract.’
“The presidency expresses delight with the processes that led to this outcome in the English Court, noting that it has given relief to the Nigerian government to further protect our national assets from criminally-minded organisations and individuals”.
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