Originally from Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation

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There are developments on the way in a long-running case involving an allegedly fraudulent $11 billion arbitral award against Nigeria, in which the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year reaffirmed that foreign sovereigns are not immune from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts in arbitration cases. Process and Industrial Developments Ltd. v. Fed. Republic of Nigeria, 27 F.4th 771 (D.C. Cir. 2022). The decision left a longstanding arbitration award undisturbed.

But other proceedings are pending. On March 6, 2023, the United Kingdom’s High Court concluded a trial in which Nigeria is trying to overturn the arbitral award. If Nigeria succeeds, it will be able to use the United Kingdom’s court findings as a defense to the award in the United States. A decision has not yet been released at press time.

The contract that sparked the drawn-out conflict between Process and Industrial Developments Ltd., referred to here as P&ID, and Federal Republic of Nigeria was signed in 2010. According to a Bloomberg report—see Kit Chellel, Joe Light and Ruth Olurounbi, “Is One of the World’s Biggest Lawsuits Built on a Sham?” Bloomberg Businessweek (Sept. 4, 2019) (available at http://bit.ly/41sac7K) —the P&ID founders were embroiled in a number of projects that ended in disappointment, lawsuits, and corruption allegations.