Two oil giants, Eni and Shell, have argued to stop or stay proceedings in a $1 billion lawsuit brought by the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN).
Virtual hearings in the case took place between Tuesday and Thursday during which the companies argued to halt the $1 billion English suit as duplicating the ongoing criminal trial and parallel civil claim being brought by Nigeria in Italy over the controversial OPL 245.
Eni’s lawyer noted that the companies have made no profit on the deal as “the FRN has declined to grant a mining license” without which no oil can be produced and no profits made. He argued further that the FRN has brought two duplicative claims in Italy and England within months of each other and that the FRN acknowledged that they might have to choose between them down the road. They were hoping to have a “one way bet,” according to Eni.
The lawyer, on behalf of Shell, claimed that the FRN seriously misled Justice Cockerill by saying that evidence of alleged wrongdoing in the OPL 245 did not become apparent until it came out of the Italian investigation. According to him, it took many weeks of chasing for the FRN to disclose the EFCC reports with little explanation of why the FRN failed to inquire into the existence of these reports earlier, adding that responses to Shell’s letters on the EFCC report were “evasive”.
He accused the FRN of “misleading statements”, “a serious lack of candour” and that in failing to apologise, they are attempting to “brazen this out”, adding that the FRN’s reason for making the claim when it did was to avoid the claim being time-barred, and if they were allowed to make the claim without proper disclosure about the limitation issues then they received an unfair advantage.
FRN’s barrister, Roger Masefield, responding to the allegation by Shell that they did not make full and frank disclosure, argued that Shell’s serious allegation is in danger of “Island hopping”, skipping over the FRN’s submission without context. The lawyer explained that the duty of full and frank disclosure is to not mislead the court in any material respect on its jurisdiction and discretion, but does not extend to every matter that might be raised by the defence to a claim.
On the judgement against Mr Obi where Justice Barbara found that it was proven that former Eni manager Vincenzo Armanna had received a kickback of $1.2 million through Nigeria’s former attorney-general, Bayo Ojo, the lawyer noted that the allegation of a kickback scheme would be used at trial to argue that the executives had a motive to take part in an illicit scheme.
Mr Masefield argued further that the money flows to Aliyu Abubakar and cash could not prove that bribes were going to Goodluck Jonathan, at most it could have been understood that Dan Etete, a convicted money launderer, was trying to launder money from the deal. He explained that the 2012 investigation was not into Shell and Eni or what they may have known about bribes, so there was no way the FRN could have argued a case against them at that time.
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