SOME LEGAL ISSUES INVOLVED IN INTERNATIONAL ARBITRAL AWARD IN THE CASE OF PROCESS AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT LIMITED v THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

Abstract

 The case of Process and Industrial Development v The Federal Republic of Nigeria has generated a lot of controversies in the government circle as well as in the academic world. The controversies centred on the near punitive award against the Nigerian government in favour of Process and Industrial Development Limited. The typology of this type of damage which forms a common feature of International Arbitral Award is difficult to fix into the existing and well-known typologies of damages. In this situation, nations wallow in a dilemma when their officials entered into an international contractual agreement with forum selection clause and without the knowledge of the executive or with the knowledge of the executive head that lacks the adequate knowledge of the legal implications of such agreement. 

It is against these backgrounds that this paper addresses the legal implications of the United Kingdom’s Arbitral Tribunal’s award in the case of Process and Industrial Development v Federal Republic of Nigeria. Legal issues forming the focal points of the paper among others are the deployment of the Dcf model which is a damage reduction mechanism to grant a more than the punitive award and the impropriety or otherwise of refusal of public policy argument by the enforcing court to grant Nigeria’s relief for a stay of enforcement; the fact that the Tribunal and the enforcing court lacked jurisdiction to grant and enforce the award; that the Tribunal and the court adopted the narrow view of public policy and the inability of the court and the Tribunal to distinguish between factual causation and legal causation among others. It is therefore against these backgrounds that we are going to address in the second part of this paper the recent relief granted Nigeria by the English court.