A Paris court has ordered the seizure of three jets belonging to the Nigerian government over the dispute involving an arbitration award in favour of Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Ltd, a Chinese firm.
The seized jets are Dassault Falcon 7X, with registration number 5N-FGU, Boeing 737-7N6/BBJ, with registration number 5N-FGT, and Airbus A330-243, with registration number 5N-FGA, two of which the federal government has put on sale.
The court ruled that the Chinese firm should use the three jets at the Paris-Le Bourget and Basel-Mulhouse international airports “as security for its claim of EUR 74,459,221.”
In 2010, Zhongshan, through Zhuhai Zhongfu Industrial Group Co. Ltd. (Zhuhai), its Chinese parent company, acquired rights to develop a free trade zone in Ogun state.
A year later, Zhongshan set up Zhongfu International Investment (NIG) FZE (Zhongfu), a Nigerian entity, to manage the project under the permission of the Ogun state government.
However, things took a different turn in July 2016 when the company accused the state government of abruptly moving to terminate its appointment while attempting to install a new manager for the free trade zone.
Subsequently, Zhongfu initiated an investment treaty arbitration against Nigeria under the bilateral investment treaty between the People’s Republic of China and Nigeria (the China-Nigeria BIT).
The arbitrators ruled that Nigeria was in breach of its obligations under the China-Nigeria BIT and awarded Zhongshan compensation of around $70 million.
Nigeria pleaded state immunity but was turned away by Sara Cockerill, a high court judge in the United Kingdom (UK), who said the country abused the time frame for appealing arbitral awards.
