A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has adjourned the tak¬ing of all the ap¬plications challenging its jurisdiction and competence over the suit brought before it by Brittania-U Nigeria Limited against Chevron Nigeria and others to March 20, 2014.
At the last adjourned date, February 10, 2014, the court ordered that it would take all the applications chal-lenging jurisdiction of the court and competence of the suit.
But at the resumed hear¬ing on March 10, 2014, Rick¬ey Tarfa (SAN), counsel to the plaintiff (Brittania-U Nig. Ltd) in his opening speech noted that the 1st defend¬ant (Chevron Nig Ltd) filed an application relating to the objection to jurisdiction which was served in the open court on the plaintiff on March 10, 2014.
In addition to other pro¬cesses filed and served on the plaintiffs on March 5 and 7, 2014, Tarfa noted that these applications border on the issue of jurisdiction of court to entertain the suit as well as the competence of the suit which was ad¬journed to March 10, 2014 for arguments.
He further drew the at¬tention of the court to the fact that there is a pend¬ing application by the 5th defendant (Seplat) at the Court of Appeal filed before the last court proceedings and which counsel never brought to the attention of the court. The applica¬tion was only served on the plaintiffs after the last adjournment in this case.
The appeal, he stated, challenges the ruling of the honourable court on the interim injunction put in place to preserve the subject-matter of the suit.
Tarfa further told the court that the business of the day was to hear the issue of jurisdiction which was filed by the defendants. “The ad¬journment to this day was also to ensure that all parties to the suit are served with all the processes to enable them have the opportunity to re¬spond to them before today, the 10th day of March, 2014”, he said.Responding Uche Nwokedi
(SAN), counsel to the 1st and 3rd defendants, agreed with the plaintiff’s counsel on the processes filed and outstanding. He, however, indicated that if the plaintiff counsel needed more time to respond to the applications, he should urge the court to do the needful.
Also, A.V Etuwewe, counsel to the 2nd and 4th defendants (Chevron U.S.A and Hermart Patel) indicated his willingness to proceed with the case having filed and responded to all the necessary processes served on them.
