The high court said there is “no real prospect” of overturning the ruling, City A.M reports.
The Nigerian government has been restrained by the United Kingdom High Court of justice from appealing last month’s ruling dismissing a $1.7 billion (£1.4 billion) claim against JP Morgan Chase Bank over the transfer of proceeds from the sale of OPL 245 in 2011.
The high court said there is “no real prospect” of overturning the ruling, City A.M reports.
The Federal Government, had in June lost its $1.7 billion claim against JP Morgan Chase Bank over the transfer of proceeds from the sale of OPL 245 in 2011, operated by Malabu Oil and Gas Limited.
According to the judgment delivered by the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales Commercial Court, there was no proof that Nigeria was defrauded in the deal.
The Federal Government had sued JP Morgan on the grounds of “Quincecare duty”, alleging that the bank “ought to have known” that there was corruption and fraud in the transaction, which saw Malabu Oil and Gas Limited sell its 100 per cent stake in OPL 245 to Shell and ENI for $1.1 billion.
Nigeria argued that there were enough “red flags” for JP Morgan to have halted the transfers. However, the bank rejected Nigeria’s claims, maintaining that all due processes were followed and money-laundering checks were done, arguing that allegations of fraud only came up after a new government took over in Nigeria.
In the judgment, Sara Cockerill ruled that the Nigerian government could not prove that it was defrauded, saying it might be that, with the benefit of hindsight, “JPMorgan would have done things differently” but “none of these things individually or collectively amount to triggering and then breaching” the bank’s duty of care to its client.
Cockerill said that by the time of the 2013 payments, the bank was “on notice of a risk” of fraud.
“There was a risk – but it was, on the evidence, no more than a possibility based on a slim foundation,” she said.
Shell and ENI had paid $1.3 billion to Nigeria’s account at JP Morgan – $801 million for Malabu Oil and Gas Limited, the original OPL 245 allottees, and $210 million as signature bonus to the Federal Government.
All attempts by Nigeria to prove that there was corruption in the OPL 245 deal have so far proved fruitless. An Italian court in March 2021 dismissed all charges of corruption in the transaction, discharging and acquitting all the defendants, including Shell, ENI and Dan Etete, the promoter of Malabu.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) previously investigated the OPL 245 deal and announced in October 2019 that it was closing the case.