{"id":23030,"date":"2019-09-28T07:34:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-28T07:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=23030"},"modified":"2019-09-28T10:52:03","modified_gmt":"2019-09-28T10:52:03","slug":"pid-9-6b-saga-nigeria-is-taking-the-wrong-path-may-pay-high-price-for-incompetence-negligence-oshodi-john-registrar-ceo-nica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=23030","title":{"rendered":"P&#038;ID $9.6B Saga: Nigeria is Taking the Wrong Path, May Pay High Price for Incompetence, Negligence \u2013 Oshodi-John, Registrar\/CEO, NICA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19231&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Registrar\/CEO, Nigerian Institute of Chartered Arbitrators(NICA), Mrs. Shola Oshodi-John has said the current approach by the federal government in handling the award of $9.6billion to an Irish firm, Process and Industrial Developments( P&amp;ID). was wrong, \u201cwe are in a mess and could end up paying huge cost.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shola Oshodi-John who spoke to Arise TV did not understand what the Minister of Information, Central Bank Governor, Inspector General of Police and others who are not experts in arbitration are doing in London.\u00a0 According to her the P&amp;ID case and others is pending are very bad cases due to incompetence.<\/p>\n<p>According to her, already Nigeria is being made to pay a running costs of $250,000 to P&amp;ID which must be paid within 14 days before they could file the appeal. \u201cWhat about other running cost to foreign lawyers, hotel accommodation and others, like lost of confidence in doing business in the country. The world is watching\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Responding to a question, Oshodi-John said the best approach would have been for the federal government to assemble Nigeria experts, called P&amp;ID to the negotiation table and tell them, though we know this is a fraud, we will pay you this amount to close to case. \u201cOtherwise, we will allow this issue to snowball into something else.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She called for synergy between the public and private sector in Nigeria saying it was complete waste of scarce resource for the federal government to engage foreign arbitrators instead of more competent Nigeria arbitrators giving various examples in which Nigerian arbitrators have saved the country from embarrassment.<\/p>\n<p>However, in various reports, the federal government is giving the impression that country is on top of the situation.<\/p>\n<p>The report says the federal government is not considering raising the $200m security payment that Justice Christopher Butcher of the Commercial Court in London ordered it to pay into the court\u2019s account in respect of an appeal against the $9.6bn arbitral award in favour of Process and Industrial Developments Limited,<\/p>\n<p>The government is looking beyond the money which is the condition attached to the stay of execution of the award.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, it is considering other legal options available besides paying the money.<\/p>\n<p>The Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), disclosed these in an exclusive interview with\u00a0<em>Saturday PUNCH\u00a0<\/em>on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The court on Thursday granted \u00a0Nigeria\u2019s request to stay of execution of the enforcement of the $9.6bn award pending the Federal Government\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n<p>Granting the stay conditionally, the judge ordered Nigeria to make a $200m security payment into its account within 60 days.<\/p>\n<p>The court also granted Nigeria\u2019s request for leave to file the appeal in respect of the $9.6bn arbitral award.<\/p>\n<p><em>Saturday PUNCH\u00a0<\/em>on Friday requested to know from Malami how the government intended to raise the money and if it would be looking towards withdrawing it from the Excess Crude Account.<\/p>\n<p>But the minister said paying the money was not an exclusive option opened to the government.<\/p>\n<p>He said the Federal Government was studying Thursday ruling.<\/p>\n<p>The plan, Malami added, was to look at other options the government could exploit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRaising the $200m is not an exclusive option at our disposal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are studying the ruling and analysing all other available legal and judicial options open to exploit,\u201d the minister explained.<\/p>\n<p>AFP reported Justice Butcher also gave Nigeria 60 days to make the security payment available \u2013 and 14 days to pay running costs which sum was not disclosed in court.<\/p>\n<p>But P&amp;ID, in a statement e-mailed\u00a0<em>Saturday PUNCH,\u00a0<\/em>following enquiries from the firm at the end of the Thursday\u2019s proceedings, said the running costs which government must pay to them within 14 days before they could file the appeal amounted to $250,000.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Butcher said P&amp;ID had the right to seize Nigerian assets should either of the deadlines be missed.<\/p>\n<p>The judge based his decision on the \u201creal risk\u201d that Nigeria\u2019s \u201cassets will not be returned in the event that the appeal is successful and would be lost to the government and to the people of Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that there was the \u201crisk of immediate, serious and potentially irreparable damage\u201d should P&amp;ID use \u201cthird-party agents\u201d to monetise and stash away the assets seized pending an appeal.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Butcher further ruled \u201cthat there may be immediate and potentially severe damage to Nigeria if there is no stay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The British court in August delivered a judgment recognising Nigeria\u2019s liability to pay P&amp;ID $9.6bn for breach of the controversial GSPA.<\/p>\n<p>The parties in the case returned to the court on Thursday with Nigeria obtaining the leave of the court to appeal against the judgment and an order of conditional stay of execution of the judgment subject to the Federal Government\u2019s payment of $200m into the court\u2019s account within 60 days.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, P&amp;ID has knocked the Federal Government over the moves by the Economic and Financial Crimes to extradite top officials of the company from Britain to Nigeria for trial.<\/p>\n<p>The acting Chairman, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, said the anti-corruption agency had officially asked the UK Crime Agency and its Irish counterpart to extradite the son of P&amp;ID\u2019s founder, Adam Quinn, and co-founder, Brendan Cahill, to Nigeria for trial over their roles in the controversial $9.6bn award.<\/p>\n<p>But the UK firm insisted on Friday that the moves were meant to distract the firm from pursuing the $200m ruling.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement to enquiries by\u00a0<em>Saturday PUNCH<\/em>, P&amp;ID said with regards to suggestions of a bid to extradite Cahill Quinn, it described it as\u00a0 \u201ca desperate move to distract focus from today\u2019s ruling requiring Nigeria to pay $200m to stave off the immediate seizure of assets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the US court proceedings, P&amp;ID said, \u201cWe\u2019ll keep you apprised on the US case as things develop.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A source in the company also told\u00a0<em>Saturday PUNCH\u00a0<\/em>that P&amp;ID would go ahead to sieze Nigeria\u2019s asset once the deadline given by the court express.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cP&amp;ID will go ahead to seize assets linked to Nigetia once the deadline passes. We are serious about this,\u201d the source added.<\/p>\n<p>P&amp;ID may be able to seize the nation\u2019s assets in 160 countries which are part of the New York Arbitration Convention, international arbitration experts have said.<\/p>\n<p>A dispute resolution partner and expert in international arbitration at a European law firm, Fieldfisher, Mr Simon Sloane, and a partner with international law firm Dentons, Mr James Langley, said P&amp;ID could seize assets belonging to Nigeria in 160 countries which are signatories to the New York Arbitration Convention.<\/p>\n<p>The convention \u2013 which Nigeria is a member \u2013 was adopted by a United Nations diplomatic conference on June 10, 1958, and entered into force on June 7, 1959.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Nigeria can either appeal against or seek the variation of the $200m security payment.<\/p>\n<p>A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr Alex Izinyon, who expressed optimism that Nigeria\u2019s appeal against the $9.6bn judgment would succeed, said the Federal Government\u2019s legal team should explore the option of filing a separate appeal against the payment.<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cThey can appeal against the $200m as a separate action different from the main challenge to canvass reasons why the amount is too onerous.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNigeria has already been granted leave to appeal to set aside the entire arbitral award on the grounds of fraud and other reasons. If that succeeds, what will be the essence of depositing $200m?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe United Kingdom court must have asked Nigeria to pay the $200m to be sure the nation is serious to prosecute the appeal. So, let Nigeria demonstrate that it is ready to prosecute the appeal and so there is no basis to deposit the $200m.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe award can be set aside, whether that fraud was discovered before or after the award.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But another SAN, Kunle Ogunba, said Nigeria should apply for a reduction of the security payment.<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cThey can apply for the variation of the amount of money to be deposited. But it is risky because the other party can also take a view that the money is too small in view of the judgment debt, without prejudice to the fact that the judgment is right or wrong. By law, they are immediately entitled to the award. I don\u2019t know the factors taken into consideration before arriving at the $200m.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGenerally, you can always apply for a variation. It is like when a court grants bail and you find the conditions to be onerous, you can always come back to the court to apply for the variation of the bail conditions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe they can file an application before the court giving reasons why the $200m is onerous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19231&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Registrar\/CEO, Nigerian Institute of Chartered Arbitrators(NICA), Mrs. Shola Oshodi-John has said the current approach by the federal government in handling the award of $9.6billion to an Irish firm, Process and Industrial Developments( P&amp;ID). was wrong, \u201cwe are in a mess and could end up paying huge cost.\u201d Shola Oshodi-John who spoke to Arise TV [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[5618,5619,5617],"class_list":["post-23030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-nigerian-institute-of-chartered-arbitrators","tag-process-and-industrial-developments","tag-shola-oshodi-john"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/p7id.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-5Zs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23030"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23036,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23030\/revisions\/23036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}