Virgin Islands top court authorises Chinese investors Zhongshan to seize $25 million from Nigeria over Ogun trade zone deal

A top court in the British Virgin Islands has granted Chinese investors Zhongshan the authority to seize £20 million ($25 million) from Nigeria’s foreign denominated assets over an Ogun trade zone deal that fell through in the early 2000s under then governor Ibikunle Amosun.

Justice Paul Webster of the British Virgin Islands High Court on November 8 held that Nigeria was not immune to execution of an arbitral award and subsequent judgment debt in favour of a Chinese company Zhongshan as a result of the wording of the underlying bilateral investment treaty concluded between China and Nigeria.

The judge held that a term of the treaty which provided that “both contracting parties shall commit to the enforcement of the award” constituted “a written consent of the Nigerian state.”

The judge, therefore, held that based on  Section 13(3) of the State Immunity Act 1978, the British Virgin Islands must allow Zhongshan to enforce the judgement debt against Nigeria from the UK.

The ruling marks the latest in a string of losses Nigeria has suffered in foreign jurisdictions over the past years. Following the initial judgement in the UK, courts in France, Belgium, Canada, the United States, British Virgin Islands, among others, have found Nigeria liable to settle the debt and dismissed the country’s sovereign immunity argument as unfounded and unenforceable against Zhongshan.

Zhongshan was represented in the case by Timothy Otty (King’s Counsel) and Lauren Peaty of Withers British Virgin Islands.

Zhongshan investors claimed that Mr Amosun had crudely backed out of the trade zone deal and that he detained them for weeks where security agents —under his orders— tortured them.

The expatriates, determined to get their pound of flesh, visited foreign courts across the world to humiliate Nigeria and argue their rights to confiscate the African nation’s assets as consequences for violating the trade zone contract.

Zhongshan targeted Nigeria’s USD-denominated crude earnings domiciled in U.S. ‘s JP Morgan to enforce the $70million award. But Nigeria, reluctant to let go of its assets, filibustered the American legal system to delay its assets seizure.

Courts in the U.S. already tossed out Nigeria’s claim to sovereign immunity, leading Nigeria to head to the Supreme Court where it filed a writ of certiorari asking the senior justices to re-examine the judgement of the lower courts.

The oil-rich West African state filed a writ of certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court on November 7 and was now awaiting the senior jurists’ decision to look into the case or not. But until the Supreme Court decides, the U.S. Appeals Court will not allow Chinese investors to withdraw millions of dollars from Nigeria’s account in JP Morgan.

Desperate to make Nigeria pay for the botched contract, Zhongshang has begun seizing the nation’s treasured assets such as  two guest houses in Liverpool, UK and two aircrafts in France and Canada.

Mr Amosun, the architect of the trade deal woes, claimed he was deceived into signing the contracts with the dubious expatriates whose assertions were belatedly discovered to be a “tissue of lies.”

The former governor in August admitted to not verifying the claims of Zhongshang investors before signing the contract, but has not released any statement to assuage irate citizens for bringing the country into international disrepute.