Nigeria has requested that a judgment against Process and Industrial Developments Company be rendered favorably by a London High Court.
The Federal Government is attempting to reverse an arbitration decision in favor of P&ID in the case with case number CL-2019-000752, which has since accrued interest totaling $11 billion.
To construct a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State, the business said it agreed with Nigeria, but the contract fell through because Nigeria’s government failed to uphold its half of the bargain.
Mark Howard, the attorney for Nigeria, alleged in court that P&ID received its contract “by repeatedly lying and paying bribes to officials.”
According to Howard, the business used financial incentives to influence several senior Nigerian government officials, including the chairman of the government technical committee that examined the gas plant deal.
In addition, according to Howard, P&ID’s founders, Michael Quinn, and Brendan Cahill had a “track record of bribery” and were engaged in “industrial scale” corruption.
“What we observe is a picture of massive corruption and bribery. This was not some casual, tiny contract on the side. That was essential to P&ID’s corporate philosophy, according to Howard.
According to Howard, the Nigerian team’s attorneys received bribes throughout the arbitration hearings.
He continued by saying that the company had immediate access to “privileged materials” from Nigeria, many of which were received through “back channels”.
The FG charged the company with hiding crucial evidence, bribery, and perjury among other things to prevail in the arbitration.
Trevor Burke and Seamus Andrew, the two attorneys who represented P&ID in the arbitration hearings, were also charged with violating their oaths to the court by disregarding evidence of their client’s wrongdoing in search of the promised “pot of gold.”
“Mr. Andrew and Mr. Burke’s integrity was compromised, just as the corrupted FRN executives and legal counsel,” Howard argued.
They were enticed to search through flagrant corruption (most notably in the shape of the FRN-protected documents) in the hopes of finding their promised pots of gold because they were guaranteed life-changing sums of money if they were successful in the claim. They did so at the cost of their duties as employees.
Following this, Howard said Nigeria is “respectfully urging the court to give a verdict as soon as reasonably possible”.
P&ID, on the other hand, insisted on their innocence and asked that the matter be returned to the first tribunal.
In conclusion, it’s written concluding arguments, the Federal Government urged the court to reject the award.
Source: punchÂ
