The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Abuja has nullified arbitration proceedings instituted at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), London, against indigenous energy giant, Aiteo Eastern E&P Company Limited.
The proceedings were initiated by a consortium of lenders, including Shell and the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), who partly financed Aiteo’s 2014 acquisition of Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29.
Justice S.B. Belgore, presiding over the matter, issued the ruling on Tuesday, July 8, following an application by Tempo Energy Nigeria Ltd. The court held that the arbitration was conducted in violation of subsisting injunctive orders issued in 2021, which restrained the parties from taking further steps in foreign legal or arbitral proceedings.
Tempo Energy had filed the suit (marked FCT/HC/CV/079/2021) in January 2021, seeking to restrain the defendants from continuing with ICC arbitration and parallel proceedings in the High Court of England and Wales. The suit named Aiteo, Shell Western, AFC, Citibank, several Nigerian banks, and others as defendants.
The High Court had previously granted interim injunctive relief on January 22, 2021. Despite this, the defendants proceeded with the ICC arbitration in London between 2021 and 2024. The Court of Appeal in Abuja, in a unanimous judgment on April 25, 2025, affirmed the validity of those interim orders and dismissed the appeal by the defendants, awarding N1.5 million in costs.
At resumed hearings in May 2025, Tempo’s counsel, Kehinde Ogunwumiju, SAN, asked the court to set aside the ICC proceedings as being in contempt of court. The defendants, led by lawyers including Babatunde Fagbohunlu, SAN, and Mrs Joke Aliyu, raised a preliminary objection, claiming the Nigerian court lacked jurisdiction to interfere in foreign arbitration. Justice Belgore dismissed the objection, describing it as lacking merit and an abuse of court process.
The judge then declared the ICC arbitration proceedings null and void and awarded N500,000 in costs to Tempo Energy. He reiterated that the interim injunction remains valid and binding and warned the defendants against further defiance.
The case has been adjourned to September 29, 2025, for hearing of pending applications.
Aiteo’s 2014 acquisition of OML 29 from Shell was valued at approximately $3.01 billion. Benedict Peters, Aiteo’s founder, reportedly invested nearly $1 billion in personal equity. Tempo Energy, a minority stakeholder, had contributed $136 million. Aiteo has also filed a separate $2.5 billion suit against Shell, alleging fraud and misrepresentation in the sale of the asset.
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