The federal government has appeared in the English High Court for a scheduled procedural hearing, to decide if its fraud challenge against the Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) can be brought outside the normal time limits.
This is another major step forward in the Federation’s bid to overturn the injustice of the US$9.98 billion award.
Spanning over two days, the challenge argued that the gas supply and processing agreement (GSPA) was a sham commercial deal designed to fail from the start and that its subsequent arbitral award was based on fraud and corruption.
The federal government is relying on ongoing investigations across multiple jurisdictions, including the US, to build its case.
During this hearing, new evidence will be presented to further support Nigeria’s challenge.
A spokesperson for the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) told TheCitizen on Monday that “the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s (FRN) ongoing investigations have uncovered further evidence of the vulture-fund-backed P&ID’s highly orchestrated scam.
Through the FRN’s investigations in the US in particular, it has become increasingly apparent that P&ID and VR Capital will go to any length to aggressively pursue their fraudulent US$10 billion award.
P&ID’s pattern of covering up their fraudulent conduct has only recently come to light.
- First, they provided false evidence to, and misled, the Arbitral Tribunal.
- Then, they failed to disclose evidence of suspicious payments to the English High Court when they had a clear opportunity to do so. When confronted by the incontrovertible documentary evidence uncovered by the FRN’s legal and investigatory team, P&ID have responded at the eleventh hour with implausible explanations.
- In other cases, they have conveniently dismissed the evidence of witnesses, or claimed that due process has not been followed.
- Not a single document or credible witness has been produced by P&ID and VR Capital to contradict the FRN’s fraud evidence.”
“P&ID and VR Capital have taken every possible step to delay or obstruct our investigations into the GSPA, which is inconsistent with their contention that the FRN should have discovered the fraud sooner. The latest revelations are no doubt why P&ID was desperate to conceal the evidence from these proceedings.
It is telling that P&ID only addresses suspicious payments when confronted by the FRN. If P&ID had nothing to hide in their transactions, they would have come clean earlier. Their evasive moves speak volumes”, the spokesperson added.
