The UK Court of Appeal has unanimously dismissed the appeal by Process & Industrial Development (P&ID) against a previous judgment halting the enforcement of its $11 billion arbitration award against Nigeria. The lead judge, Lord Justice Snowden, permitted P&ID to appeal the judgment but ultimately dismissed it.
In the judgment, published on the UK judiciary website, two key issues were raised by P&ID. The first concerned whether the lower court erred in ordering the £43 million legal cost to be paid in British pounds sterling rather than in naira. P&ID argued that Nigeria funded its legal services by converting naira from its consolidated revenue fund.
The second issue was whether the judge was correct in ordering P&ID to pay Nigeria’s legal costs in sterling. Addressing this, Lord Justice Snowden accepted Nigeria’s argument that since the legal costs were invoiced, incurred, and paid in sterling, the cost order should also be in sterling.
“In my judgment, therefore, the judge was right to accept Nigeria’s straightforward submission that because Nigeria had been invoiced and had incurred its liability to its solicitors in sterling and had paid those bills in sterling, the court ought to make its Costs Order in sterling,” ruled Lord Justice Snowden.
