Nigeria wins £44m legal costs against P&ID – How it started
On Wednesday, October 22, 2025 the UK Supreme Court ordered Process and Industrial Developments (P&ID), an offshore company, to pay £44 million, in legal costs, to Nigeria. A five-member panel led by Lord Reed, President of the Supreme Court, ruled unanimously that P&ID must pay the costs in pounds sterling, not in Nigerian naira, as the company had urged.
With the judgment on Wednesday, the Supreme Court affirmed the earlier decisions of the UK Commercial Court and the Court of Appeal, which held that Nigeria’s legal expenses, incurred and paid in sterling should be recovered in the same currency.
Read also: EFCC seeks Interpol’s support against P&ID, extradition of treasury looters
How it started
The Federal Republic of Nigeria and P&ID entered into a 20-year gas supply and processing agreement (GSPA) in 2010, whereby the Government agreed that it would supply natural gas (wet gas) to P&ID.
In turn, P&ID agreed to process and return eighty-five percent of the wet gas in the form of lean gas, which could be used for energy generation. P&ID agreed to construct two or more sophisticated plants with ancillary facilities for the wet gas to be processed. This construction was never carried out.
Who oversaw the signing of the agreement?
A former Minister for Petroleum Resources and his legal adviser at the time oversaw the signing of the GSPA.
According to court documents and media reports, top government officials, living and dead, were involved in collecting bribes in the Nigeria vs P&ID case. Those reportedly involved include the late Rilwanu Lukman, former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Taofiq Tijani, a former NNPC official, the late Grace Taiga, former director of Legal Services at the Ministry. Theophilus Danjuma, an influential Nigerian, was also implicated among others.
At the center of the case was Grace Taiga, who was a former Director of Legal Services at the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
She served from 2004 to 2010, a time during which she was key in negotiating the GSPA between P&ID and the Nigerian government.
According to court documents and media reports, Taiga was involved in collecting bribes from P&ID in exchange for her support for the GSPA.
Bank statements seized by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) revealed that a series of payments totalling over $20,000 were made to her offshore bank accounts, from companies associated with P&ID, while she served at the Ministry in 2010.
She is also alleged to have ignored due process in giving legal advice on the GSPA.
In 2019, Taiga was arrested and charged by EFCC with money laundering and fraud.
She was released on bail and was on trial at the time of her death in September 2023. Taiga was never convicted of any crime in relation to the Nigeria vs P&ID case. She died before her trial could be completed.
Read also: P&ID: UK court orders release of $200m to Nigeria
Litigation creeped in
In 2012, P&ID alleged that the Federation had not fulfilled its obligations in regard to the GSPA, and claimed damages for lost profits, in the region of $6 billion.
But, P&ID had spent little to no money in preparing to fulfill its obligations, the Nigerian government stated.
According to the government, “P&ID claims to have invested $40 million in the project, but has shown no evidence to prove this. P&ID never engaged anybody to carry out preparatory work, nor did it hold any land at that time. It simply had no intention of carrying out its part of the GSPA.
“The GSPA is, sadly, an example of officials using sham commercial deals to fraudulently divert much-needed assets from the Nigerian people.”
In 2019, an arbitral tribunal in London awarded the firm $9.6 billion in damages against Nigeria, a figure that later grew to more than $11 billion with interest.
The judgment immediately placed Nigeria’s foreign assets and reserves at risk of seizure, prompting a coordinated government response.
Concerned by the threat to the nation’s reserves, then Central Bank governor Godwin Emefiele approached President Muhammadu Buhari for approval to allow the bank to finance and coordinate Nigeria’s legal defence.
Buhari granted the request, directing the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, to work with the CBN in pursuing an appeal.
When several leading British law firms declined to take on the case due to the elapsed appeal window, Mishcon de Reya LLP accepted the brief, relying on Section 68 of the UK Arbitration Act, which permits challenges to arbitral awards obtained by fraud.
The case began in 2020, and by August 2023, the UK Commercial Court had delivered a stunning victory for Nigeria, ruling that P&ID had procured its contract through bribery and deceit.
That decision reversed the earlier award and saved Nigeria from paying billions of dollars in damages.
Justice Robin Knowles, who presided over the 2023 case, found that P&ID’s representatives had paid bribes to Nigerian officials and unlawfully retained privileged government documents to advance their claims.
The judge also criticised two of P&ID’s London-based lawyers, Trevor Burke KC and Seamus Andrews, for making an “indefensible decision” to use Nigeria’s internal documents that they were not entitled to see.
He noted that both men stood to gain massive personal rewards, £850 million and £3 billion respectively had P&ID succeeded.
Their cases were subsequently referred to the Bar Standards Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority for disciplinary action.
Following the 2023 victory, Nigeria incurred substantial legal expenses amounting to £44.2 million, paid across 116 invoices between November 2019 and November 2024.
Read also: UK court orders P&ID to deposit £1.5m for appeal against Nigeria
P&ID later appealed the order to pay those costs in sterling, arguing that the payment should be made in naira to prevent Nigeria from benefiting from favourable exchange rates, particularly following the sharp depreciation of the naira after its float in 2023.
In a joint judgment delivered by Lord Hodge and Lady Simler, with the concurrence of Lords Reed, Stephens, and Richards, the Court held that legal costs are not compensatory in nature but a statutory indemnity for expenses reasonably incurred during litigation.
According to the justices, “As Nigeria had incurred liability and made payments in sterling, the court ought to make a costs order in sterling.”
The Court further emphasised that costs awards differ from damages in contract or tort cases.
It noted that costs are discretionary and meant to provide a fair contribution to legal expenses, not to compensate for financial loss.
The justices warned that adopting P&ID’s position would encourage unnecessary and expensive side litigation about how litigants fund their legal fees.
They stressed that there was no legal requirement under the Senior Courts Act 1981 or the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 for costs orders to be made only in sterling, but reaffirmed that awards should generally reflect the currency in which legal services were billed and paid.
Sources close to the case confirmed the behind-the-scenes efforts that ensured Nigeria’s success.
“The judgment shook the country to its core. But the former CBN governor rose to the occasion, declaring that Nigeria didn’t have the money to pay such colossal sums.
“He chose to fight instead of folding to fraudsters who wanted to burden generations of Nigerians with a fake debt”, the source said.
The UK Supreme Court’s ruling now cements Nigeria’s victory, affirming its right to recover full legal costs in sterling and bringing final closure to a case that spanned more than a decade.
