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Tag: JP Morgan

  • Nigeria $1.7bn judgment loss: Ex-AGF says courts vindicated him

    Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General to the Federation, AGF, Mohammed Adoke, SAN has said the London Court judgment on OPL 245, in which Nigeria lost its $1.7billion case against JP Morgan Chase, has finally vindicated him and his name cleansed.

    TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) reports that an elated Adoke in a statement, personally signed by him said: “The courts have vindicated me on OPL 245 yet again I received with delight the news of the 137-page judgment of the Commercial Court of England and Wales in Case No CL-2017-000730 between the Federal Government of Nigeria and JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. delivered on June 14, 2022, declaring yet again that there is no evidence of fraud in the OPL 245 transaction.

    “Although I was not expecting a contrary judgment knowing well that I did no wrong and I served Nigeria with all honesty and every sense of duty and patriotism, it is very gratifying that foreign courts have declared over and over again that there were no fraudulent or corrupt practices involved in the OPL 245 Settlement Resolution.

    “Although I was not a party in the suit, the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, caused all manner of false depositions to be made against me to paint the transaction with the tar of corruption to justify the spurious criminal proceedings instituted against me in Nigeria. I am particularly pleased with the outcome of the suit because if it were to be Nigerian courts, I would have been accused of buying justice by my traducers, who are hell-bent on tarnishing my name and destroying me for political reasons.

    “It is important to recall that OPL 245 was awarded to Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd in 1998 by the military government of Gen Sani Abacha. It was revoked by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2001, following which Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd went to court to challenge the action. In 2006, the administration of President Obasanjo opted for an Out-of-Court Settlement and returned OPL 245 to Malabu 100 per cent.

    “This was the state of affairs when I was appointed Attorney-General and Minister of Justice by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010.

    “President Jonathan asked me, as the Chief Law Officer of the Federation, to give him legal advice on the validity and enforceability of the Out-of-Court Settlement entered by the Obasanjo Administration. After reviewing all the documents related to the oil block, I advised him that the Settlement Agreement dated 30th November 2006 had already been reduced into a subsisting Consent Judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja. My involvement in the entire OPL 245 saga was carrying out the lawful directives/approvals of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, to the effect that the Settlement Agreement was implemented.

    “However, when President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in 2015, some influential figures in his government deceived him into believing that Nigeria could get back the $1.1 billion that Shell/ENI paid to Malabu for OPL 245. They thought that by impugning the transaction and painting me with the tar of corruption, they would have a great chance in court. As part of the scheme, they elicited the assistance of some so-called activists and anti-corruption crusaders at home and abroad to scandalise my name by forging all kinds of documents to be used against me in local and foreign jurisdictions where the OPL 245 transaction was undergoing judicial scrutiny.

    “But, as I have constantly reiterated, every action taken by me concerning the resolution of the controversies around OPL 245 and the eventual transfer of the oil block from Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd to Shell and ENI was done with the requisite Presidential Directives/Approvals and the best intentions for Nigeria. This much was acknowledged in the 2018 Judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja Coram B.N. Nyako, J, where the court stated that I could not be held personally liable for carrying out the lawful directives/approvals of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    ” I did not demand or receive any form of bribe or gratification from the Parties to the OPL 245 Settlement Agreement. Yet, the Federal Government of Nigeria has outrightly ignored the subsisting judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja and proceeded to file spurious criminal charges against me ostensibly to sustain their claim against JP Morgan Chase Bank with the hope of reaping from an undeserved windfall.
    God is so good that in March 2021, an Italian court dismissed all corruption charges in the OPL 245 deal, discharging and acquitting all the defendants. Although I was not on trial, my name was frequently mentioned, but I came out unscathed.

    ” The court findings exonerated me of any blame or corrupt act. Not satisfied, the current Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mallam Abubakar Malami, engaged lawyers to make all kinds of mindless and libellous allegations against me in Commercial Court in the UK in an attempt to make JP Morgan refund the $1.1bn paid to Malabu, along with supposed interests totalling $1.7bn. The UK court has now dismissed the allegations of fraud. My name is cleared yet again.

    “It is also worthy of note that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) investigated the OPL 245 deal and brought it to a close in October 2019 without any charges. Also, in April 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it could not prove any allegations of fraud or corruption and decided to close the investigation into the transaction. It is gratifying that those respected authorities in the US, the UK and Italy have all scrutinised the OPL 245 deal extensively and exhaustively without a single conviction whatsoever.

    “I have been unjustly defamed locally and internationally, and my livelihood has been taken from me; however, I am grateful to friends, colleagues and well-wishers who have stood by me throughout this challenging and depressing period.

    “Now that it is clear to all discerning minds that no fraud was perpetrated in the OPL 245 Resolution Agreement, the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation should be advised to refrain from wasting Nigeria’s hard-earned foreign exchange by way of legal fees on local and foreign counsel in a bid to prove the existence of a fraud that never was.

    Mr Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN, CFR
    Former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice
    June 14, 2022

  • How JP Morgan argued to win $1.7 billion case against Nigeria

    JP Morgan Chase has won a $1.7 billion London High Court battle against Nigeria over its role in a disputed 2011 oilfield deals involving energy majors Shell and Eni.

    Nigeria had filed a lawsuit against U.S. bank JP Morgan Chase at a London high court in February, claiming more than $1.7 billion as damages.

    The trial opened with Nigeria’s lawyer Roger Masefield alleging that JP Morgan was “grossly negligent” in its decision to transfer funds paid by the energy majors into an escrow account to a company controlled by the country’s former oil minister Dan Etete instead of into government coffers.

    According to Masefield, the transactions put JP Morgan in breach of its Quincecare duty, which obliges banks to disregard a customer’s instructions if following those instructions might actually facilitate a fraud against that customer.

    “Under its Quincecare duty, the bank was entitled to refuse to pay for as long as it had reasonable grounds for believing its customer was being defrauded,” Masefield said.

    The damages sought include cash sent to Etete’s company Malabu Oil and Gas, around $875 million paid in three instalments in 2011 and 2013, plus interest, taking the total to over $1.7 billion.

    But a London High Court judge said no such breach took place in a ruling published on Tuesday.

    JP Morgan’s counsel Paul Erekoro, argued that the allegations against it were “baseless and false” and denied any complicity in the case.

    The bank said that it did not breach the Quincecare duty, neither did it act with gross negligence as claimed by the Nigerian government.

    Erekoro said that release of Malabu’s claims over OPL 245 was a vital part of the transaction, because without this Shell and Eni would not have been prepared to take on the block, and it would therefore have continued to languish in an unproductive state.

    “The Resolution Agreements were subject to detailed scrutiny by a large number of senior ministers and officials within the FGN, most of whom are not accused of any wrongdoing

    “The agreements were personally approved by President Jonathan, and represented the policy of his administration.

    “JPMC agreed to provide the Depository Account for this purpose, and charged a fee of $25,000 for its services. Its role was thus intended to be discrete and limited,” the bank said.

    A spokesman for the bank said in a statement on Tuesday, that the judgment “reflects our commitment to acting with high professional standards in every country we operate in, and how we are prepared to robustly defend our actions and reputation when they are called into question”.

    Brief Background

    The London case dates back to 1998 when Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha awarded the offshore oilfield licence, OPL 245, to a company Etete owned.

    The $20 million price tag – of which Etete paid about $2 million, according to court documents – was widely viewed by industry experts as too low given the block was expected to yield billions of dollars of crude, although it remains undeveloped.

    Subsequent Nigerian administrations contested Etete’s rights to the field, triggering years of legal wrangling until a deal designed to end the battles was struck in 2011.

    Etete’s company Malabu Oil and Gas handed the undeveloped OPL 245 back to Nigeria as part of a resolution agreement involving Shell and Eni.

    To complete the deal, Shell and Eni also paid a signature bonus of about $200 million directly to the Nigerian government and then deposited $1.1 billion in the Nigerian government’s escrow account with JP Morgan, court documents showed.

    A report by the anti-corruption group, Global Witness, released in November 2018, said that Shell and Eni’s deal for Nigeria’s OPL 245 oil block reduced Nigeria’s expected revenue by nearly $6 billion.

    The report urged Nigeria to revoke the OPL 245 licence rather than allow the oil companies to make enormous profits from the deal.

  • Twitter’s board adopts “poison pill” over billionaire’s Elon Musk $43bn (£33bn) offer for purchase of company

    Twitter’s board adopts “poison pill” over billionaire’s Elon Musk $43bn (£33bn) offer for purchase of company

    Following billionaire’s Elon Musk offer of $43bn (£33bn) to buy the Twitter, the board of the platform has adopted a “limited-duration shareholder rights plan”, also known as a “poison pill”

     

    It was gathered that the move will prevent anyone from having more than a 15% stake in the company.

     

    By this, others are allowed to buy additional shares at a discount.

     

    The Twitter board detailed its defence plan to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and put out a statement saying it was needed because of Mr Musk’s “unsolicited, non-binding proposal to acquire Twitter”.

     

    A takeover bid is considered hostile when one company tries to acquire another against the wishes of that company’s management – in Twitter’s case, its executive board.

     

    Josh White, former financial economist for the Securities and Exchange Commission, told the BBC that a poison pill is “one of those last lines of defence against a hostile bid takeover”.

     

    “We call it the nuclear option,” he said.

     

    Mr White says the board has made it clear “that they don’t feel like it’s a high enough value for the company”.

     

    Mr White says he was surprised by Mr Musk’s negotiation tactic because if the end game is to acquire the company it might not be the “right approach”.

     

    “I actually think if he was truly serious about the takeover attempt, he would have started at a price and left the window open for negotiation,” he said.

     

    The plan will expire on 14 April next year.

     

    Chief Executive Parag Agrawal previously said the company was not being “held hostage” by the offer.

     

    Meanwhile, Mr Musk said at the TED2022 conference in Vancouver: “I am not sure that I will actually be able to acquire it.” He added that he does have a “plan B”, though he did not divulge it.

     

    Mr Musk announced a 9.2% stake in the company earlier this month, but he is not the largest shareholder anymore. Asset management firm Vanguard Group disclosed that its funds now own a 10.3% stake.

     

    According to him, he believes Twitter is limiting freedom of speech on the platform and he reiterated this at the Vancouver event.

     

    He has said his primary motivation would be to expand free speech – a US Constitutional right – on Twitter.

     

    Mr Musk is being advised by the US investment bank Morgan Stanley.

     

    Meanwhile, Twitter is being helped by two banks, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, according to Bloomberg.

  • Oil prices won’t go higher than $70 in years to come – JP Morgan

    Oil prices at $70 may be the top of the range in the price of oil that would be seen over the next few years, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, David Kelly told Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas on Monday.

    “Yes, we’ve got those geopolitical issues, but I don’t know if sanctions would be that effective, it has to be a global effect,” Kelly said.

    Based on the cuts in production and on growth in the U.S. shale industry, oil at $70 a barrel may be “as high as it gets”, according to the strategist.

    “That’s a price that I don’t think is hurting U.S. consumers too much,” Kelly said, adding that $70 oil is a price that’s actually helping the stock market and U.S. energy companies.

    At the beginning of this year, J.P. Morgan lifted its Brent oil price forecast to $70 a barrel for 2018. The global economy will continue to expand, which will stimulate growth in oil demand and healthy prices, J.P. Morgan said in January, expecting that 2018 would be a year of two halves for the oil market and oil prices. The first half of the year will be so strong that Brent could hit $78 a barrel in the first or the second quarter.

    Yet, in the second half of the year, drillers will increase their production in response to the higher prices, and this higher production may weigh on oil benchmarks, according to J.P. Morgan.

  • Malabu oil deal: FG sues JP Morgan for $875m

    Malabu oil deal: FG sues JP Morgan for $875m

    The Federal Government has filed a claim against JP Morgan Chase for more than $875 million, accusing it of negligence in transferring funds from a disputed 2011 oilfield deal to a company controlled by the former Minister of Petroleum Resources.

    However, a spokeswoman for JP Morgan dismissed the accusation on Thursday, saying the firm “considers the allegations made in the claim to be unsubstantiated and without merit”.

    The suit filed in British courts relates to a purchase of the offshore OPL 245 oilfield in Nigeria by oil majors Royal Dutch Shell and Eni in 2011.

    At the core of the case is a $1.3 billion payment from Shell and Eni to secure the block that the lawsuit says was deposited into a Nigerian government escrow account managed by JP Morgan.

    The lawsuit said JP Morgan then received a request from finance ministry workers to transfer more than $800 million of the funds to accounts controlled by the previous operator of the block, Malabu Oil and Gas, itself controlled by former oil minister Dan Etete.

    The lawsuit said that JP Morgan then transferred the funds to two accounts controlled by Etete, without sufficient due diligence to make sure the money did not leave accounts controlled by the Nigerian government.

    Reuters was unable to reach either Etete or Malabu for comment.

    The filing seen by Reuters was made in London in November on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and says that JP Morgan acted with gross negligence by allowing the transfer of the money without further checks.

    It said JP Morgan should have known that, under Nigerian law, the money should never have been transferred to an outside company.

    “If the defendant acted with reasonable care and skill and/or conducted reasonable due diligence it would or should have known or at least suspected … that it was being asked to transfer funds to third parties who were seeking to misappropriate the funds from the claimant and/or that there was a significant risk that this was the case,” the filing said.

    Late last year, a Milan judge ruled that Shell and Eni must stand trial in Italy, where Eni is headquartered, for a separate legal case in which Milan prosecutors allege bribes were paid to Etete and others as part of the same oilfield deal, including sums that went to Etete’s Malabu.

    Both Eni and Shell have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to that case. Malabu has never commented on the case and Reuters has not been able to contact it.