Faith Studio

A Chinese investment group, Zhongshang Fucheng Industrial Investment Ltd, is increasing its efforts to recover $70 million in arbitration settlement from Nigeria. The company has announced plans to auction two residential properties it seized in the United Kingdom to raise the outstanding funds.

The properties, located in Liverpool, were acquired in June 2024 following a court order granted to Zhongshang in December 2021. The order authorized the company to seize Nigerian assets in the United Kingdom to satisfy the arbitration judgment, which stemmed from a dispute with Ogun State.

The Chinese company had dragged Nigeria before the arbitration panel in the UK in 2018, accusing Nigeria of allowing its federal organs like the police, immigration and export processing authority to be deployed by Ogun State without due process. Court documents revealed that two Zhongshang executives were expelled from Nigeria between mid and late 2016 after one of them had allegedly been detained and tortured by the police.

The case has once again thrown Nigeria into confusion, barely months after the country luckily escaped a similar arbitration decision that awarded over $11 billion to a consortium called P&ID. The arbitration verdict was thrown out after it was later discovered that P&ID owners were involved in bribery and corruption.

According to the Chinese Company, Ogun State violated a trade treaty between Nigeria and China by rescinding its rights to a free trade zone in 2016. The company has been pursuing legal action against Nigeria in various jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, and the United States.