US court compound FG’s woes, authorize the seizure of Nigeria’s assets

An appellate court in the United States has rejected Nigeria’s sovereign immunity and authorised a Chinese consortium to proceed with its efforts to confiscate Nigeria’s assets abroad, aggravating a crisis that President Bola Tinubu has been trying to manage in Europe and prevent from spilling to other jurisdictions.

The decision on August 9, 2024, came after judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Washington found that Nigeria had gruesomely violated both fundamental and commercial rights of executives at a Chinese firm that had entered into a trade zone agreement with Nigeria.

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The Chinese workers of Zhongshan had approached the U.S. judicial system to retrieve an outstanding arbitration award for breach of contract after initially winning their case in the United Kingdom in 2021

The Chinese expatriates were awarded $55.6 million in compensation from Nigeria and $75,000 in moral damages, alongside interest and legal and arbitration fees, court filings said.