Nigeria to be paid P&ID cost in Pounds- Fagbemi

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, has said that the United Kingdom Court of Appeal has ordered that Nigeria’s P&ID Post judgment costs be paid in Great Britain Pounds Sterling.

This was contained in a statement by the Special Assistant to the President on Communications and Publicity, Office of the AGF, Kamarudeen Ogundele, on Friday.

Ogundele stated that the AGF lauded the U. K Appellate Court’s decision that rejected P&ID’s request to pay the judgment cost in Naira which would have reduced the legal cost by a wide margin.

He described the request to pay the fees in naira as another desperate attempt to defraud Nigeria, saying the court’s refusal is another victory won against corruption.

“The Hon. Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef O. Fagbemi, (SAN) is delighted at a report just received from our UK solicitors on the latest victory recorded by Nigeria in its fight against corruption and extortion by litigation hawks. Consequent to our success in defeating the fraudulent USD 11 billion claim by P&ID last year, Nigeria is continuing its efforts to recover its substantial costs from P&ID and its vulture fund backers.

“Today (being the 12th day of July 2024), the United Kingdom Court of Appeal validated Nigeria’s claim for the post-judgment costs to be paid in Pound Sterling (GBP), which P&ID tried to reduce drastically by claiming that Nigeria should only be entitled to recover its costs in Naira, which evidently will produce a much lower cost.

“This was another misconceived and desperate attempt by fraudsters to deprive the Nigerian people of hard-earned public revenue. As a government, we are very determined to recover these costs and make P&ID and its US funders pay for their scam so as to serve as a deterrence to others of their ilk. We commend the dedication and tenacity of our legal team for this accomplishment,” the statement read.

Recall that P&ID had sued Nigeria for allegedly breaching the terms of a gas supply and processing agreement contract signed in 2010.

However, a tribunal in the United Kingdom in 2017 ordered Nigeria to pay the firm $6.6 billion as damages as well as pre-and post-judgment interest that amounted to about $11 billion.

Dissatisfied with the judgement, Nigeria filed an appeal before the UK appellate court that delivered judgment in her favour.