Nigeria: $12 Billion Crude oil Recovery – Court of Appeal Strikes Out Chevron’s Appeal against the FG.

The Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos on Thursday delivered judgment in favour of the Federal Government of Nigeria in an appeal filed by Chevron Petroleum Nigeria challenging the Federal High Court’s decision to strike out Chevron’s preliminary objection against the suit filed by the FGN for undeclared proceeds of crude oil shipments amounting to a sum of USD 462, 681, 780.

The Court of Appeal in delivering its judgment agreed with the submissions of Professor Fabian Ajogwu, SAN as canvassed by Ituah Imhanze, Esq., Counsel to the FGN and held that the omission of the 1st Defendant (Chevron Nigeria Limited) at the Federal High Court on the face of the Notice of Appeal rendered the Appeal incompetent, and the Court thus ordered that the matter be remitted to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to be assigned to another Judge of the Federal High Court for hearing.

This Appeal emanated from a series of suits filed by Federal Government against same multinational oil corporations – Shell, Chevron, Agip and Brasoil – in a bid to recover over NGN2 Trillion, believed to be proceeds of unremitted crude oil revenue.

The unremitted revenue is from over 57 million barrels of crude oil shipments that were either not declared or under-declared between 2011 and 2014.