The United Kingdom Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by Process & Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID), affirming that Nigeria is entitled to recover its legal costs in pounds sterling rather than naira after overturning a multi-billion-dollar arbitral award.
Naijaonpoint reports that the ruling, delivered on October 22, 2025, in Michaelmas Term [2025] UKSC 36, saw a panel led by Lord Reed, President of the Supreme Court, unanimously uphold earlier judgments of the Commercial Court and the Court of Appeal.
The justices ruled that Nigeria’s costs must be paid in the same currency in which its legal obligations were incurred.
The case arose after Nigeria successfully overturned two arbitral awards, worth over $11bn, including interest, earlier granted to P&ID.
In 2023, the Commercial Court declared the awards “procured by fraud” and void, handing Nigeria a landmark legal victory.
In pursuing the case, Nigeria incurred £44.2m in legal expenses, billed and paid in sterling through 116 invoices between November 2019 and November 2024.
P&ID had argued that the costs order should be issued in naira, insisting that payment in pounds would grant Nigeria a “windfall” given the steep depreciation of the naira since its float in 2023.
But the Supreme Court rejected the claim.
Delivering a joint judgment, Lord Hodge and Lady Simler, backed by Lords Reed, Stephens, and Richards, ruled, “As Nigeria had incurred liability and made payments in sterling, the court ought to make a costs order in sterling.”
The court stressed that an order for costs is a statutory indemnity for expenses incurred in litigation, not compensation for loss.
It cautioned that adopting P&ID’s approach, requiring inquiries into how litigants fund legal fees, would create “disproportionate and expensive satellite litigation.”
The judgment reaffirmed that costs must ordinarily be awarded in the currency in which legal services were billed and paid, except in exceptional or abusive circumstances.
The court dismissed P&ID’s appeal and ordered the company to pay Nigeria’s costs on the standard basis.
This decision cements another major legal win for Nigeria, following its 2023 triumph in setting aside the fraudulent $11bn arbitral award.
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