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Global law firm, with offices in more than 45 countries including 11 in the USA, is advocating for increased use of arbitration to settle cases in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector to build on the success recorded in this mediation that have excluded the use of traditional courts.
This recourse to arbitration, the company says is driven by realities in the sector such as declining price of crude oil, the complexities of energy sector contracts and to mitigate length of time it takes for cases to be decided, a luxury projects in the oil sector which are set against price benchmarks do not have.
“With the oil and gas, we now see a lot of disputes coming now to arbitration in a tighter environment we are seeing not just in Nigeria but internationally, a lot of more disputes coming, people are seeking to delay payments,” says Nathan Searle, a partner in Hogan Lovells International arbitration group, in a chat with journalists in Lagos recently.
Nathan further said, “Without getting into the details, I can say certainly we see a lot more cases coming. The oil market has become increasingly competitive on a global scale, the Shale oil in the US, activities in Iran and others so it has become impetrative for Nigeria to consider how it will make itself competitive within the global markets.”
However this is not without some challenges. Nathan said that a critical problem with arbitration in the Nigerian courts is that the arbitration awards can get appealed to the Nigerian courts and take a lot of time to settle the case which is critical issue as resources are not finite.
Highlighting further the activities of the company in the sector, Andrew Skipper, who currently heads the Africa practice of the law firm said the company is assisting governments and companies in Africa to improve regulation, increase capacity development and provide more opportunities to harness their resources.
“We are currently engaging with the legal community to bring the next generation of arbitration lawyers. We are embarking on training for judges too and our skills programme has many lawyers from Nigeria be trained at our London office,” says Skipper.
Nigeria needs more projects in the oil and gas sector to ramp up capacity and shore up declining revenues from fall in oil prices. NigerDock recently graduated over 40 students from its skill programme in the oil sector but they could not be absolved because there were too few projects in the country.
ISAAC ANYAOGU
