AELEX is pleased to have successfully represented GE International Operations Nigeria Limited (“GE”) at the Port Harcourt Judicial Division of the Court of Appeal of Nigeria, against Q Oil and Gas Services Limited in Appeal No. CA/PH/15/2021 filed by GE against the judgment of the High Court of Rivers State, which awarded the sum of Five Million US Dollars, as exemplary damages, in favour of Q Oil against GE and Renco Nigeria Limited for unlawful interference with the employment contracts between Q Oil and two of its former employees.
In summary, in 2008, GE and Q Oil entered into a non-exclusive 1-year Master Services Agreement (“MSA”) under which Q Oil was to provide GE with certain employees. Further to the MSA, Q Oil supplied five employees to GE. However, GE found that only three of them met their job specifications and accepted them.
Subsequently, two out of the three employees accepted by GE resigned from Q Oil’s employment and secured employment with Renco (another supplier) and were presented by Renco to GE, who employed them.
Aggrieved by Renco’s action, Q Oil filed an action at the High Court of Rivers State seeking declaratory reliefs, special and exemplary damages in the sum of Eleven Million, Nine Hundred and Eleven Thousand, Nine Hundred and Sixty Naira against GE and Renco for unlawful interference with Q Oil’s contracts of employment with the said employees.
On 6th October 2020, the High Court of Rivers State entered judgment in Q Oil’s favour and awarded the sum of Five Million US Dollars as exemplary damages against GE and Renco. Dissatisfied with the judgment, GE appealed to the Court of Appeal, Port Harcourt Judicial Division, while Q Oil cross-appealed on the quantum of damages awarded by the High Court.
The Court of Appeal, in a unanimous judgment delivered on the 4th of August 2025, allowed GE’s appeal. The Court of Appeal held that Q Oil did not lead cogent evidence to prove how GE and Renco unlawfully interfered with Q Oil’s contracts with its former employees and therefore set aside the High Court’s award of exemplary damages in the sum of Five Million Dollars.
The Court of Appeal also held that the High Court’s finding of unlawful interference was speculative and unsupported by evidence. The Court of Appeal then dismissed Q Oil’s cross-appeal in CA/PH/172/2021 and awarded costs against it.
The ǼLEX team that represented GE in the appeals consisted of Adedapo Tunde-Olowu, SAN, Rafiq Anammah, MCIArb, Linda Ezenyimulu, and Chiamaka Udeh.
ANALYSIS OF THE JUDGMENT IN UNILEVER PLC V. RETAIL SUPERMARKETS NIGERIA LIMITED
AELEX is pleased to have represented the successful defendant, RETAIL SUPERMARKETS NIGERIA LIMITED (RSNL), in a suit instituted by UNILEVER NIGERIA PLC in SUIT NO: LD/ADR/3639/2021.
Unilever Nigeria Plc alleged that after an internal financial review in 2019, it discovered that RSNL refused to settle invoices for goods supplied between 2016 and 2017, valued at over Five Hundred Million Naira.
On behalf of the Defendant, we challenged the entirety of the Claimant’s case on the grounds that the goods on the disputed invoices were neither ordered by the Defendant nor delivered to the Defendant. The Defendant further denied knowledge, authorship and/or ownership of the names, signatures and stamps on the alleged proof of delivery of the goods and submitted that the purchase order numbers were fictitious.
The court heard the evidence of forensic document examiners for the parties, both who testified that the documents placed before the court by the Claimant were forged.
In a well-considered judgment delivered by Honourable Justice Lateefa A. Okunnu of the High Court of Lagos State, the court held that the Claimant failed to discharge the burden of proving that the goods were ordered by the Defendant and delivered to the Defendant, and as such, the foundation of the Claimant’s claim for unpaid goods effectively collapsed.
The Court also found it curious that no steps were taken by the Claimant to report the allegations of fraud to the police for a criminal investigation and dismissed the suit in its entirety, in favour of the Defendant
Conclusion
This case underscores the established principle of law that the burden of proof is on who asserts the existence of a thing, without which a case a fatally flawed. It also underscores the essential role of criminal investigations in civil claims for fraud.
Oluwaseun Philip-Idiok, Adeyemi Gomes and Esther Siyaidon represented the Defendants.
For more information, please contact: drp@aelex.com
