Two former officials of the Federal Government in the Process & Industrial Developments $9.6bn case, who were accused of collecting bribes from the Irish firm, said they spent some of the monies to cover a son’s wedding, a medical trip to London, among others.
The Federal Government had appealed the decision in September 2019, despite having missed a deadline to do so, and was given a stay of execution provided it made a $200m security payment. Further checks in the court document showed that 34 witness statements were made before the court, including eight from the Attorney-General, Mr Abubakar Malami.The court document said, “Payments/alleged bribes – the alleged bribes which Nigeria relied on for the purposes of the hearing were collected in a schedule. In summary the date and amount of these payments, their source, and the date Nigeria uncovered them, are as follows: a senior legal adviser to the Ministry at time of GSPA.
“He says that in early 2009, he attended an unusual meeting in the office of the Minister of Petroleum Resources at the time. Mr Quinn, and a colleague, Neil Hitchcock, were there. The minister directed him to recommend P&ID’s project. After the meeting, Mr Hitchcock dropped a black bag into his car, describing it as a ‘gift’ and that they normally took care of their friends. It contained US$50,000 in cash.
The court ruling said, “Mr Howard’s case was that in the first two stages of the arbitration, its counsel, Mr Shasore, deliberately defended the case thinly such that the Tribunal had no choice but to find for P&ID . The reason was that he colluded with P&ID, with the inevitable result that Nigeria would lose the case.”
“At the quantum stage, Mr Howard submitted, Nigeria’s new counsel, Mr Ayorinde, was precluded from reopening the matter. Not only did he not know of Mr Shasore’s behaviour, he had no basis to apply to reopen the Tribunal’s prior findings.”
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