UPDATE 2-Nigeria files fraud charge in bid to overturn nearly $10bln penalty

(Adds background on alleged fraud charges, amount of penalty)
By Libby George
LAGOS, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Lawyers for the Nigerian government
filed "new and substantive" allegations of fraud with a British
court on Friday, carrying on a fight against an arbitration
award now worth close to $10 billion, a spokesman for the
attorney general said.
The government has been contesting efforts by British Virgin
Islands-based Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) to
enforce the award for a failed gas project and is also seeking
to overturn the underlying award, the spokesman said.
The filing has been expected for months, as the window to
appeal the award expired and proving fraud or corruption in the
foundation of the contract is the only way to overturn it. [https:// "Nigeria's new filings with the English Court is an act of
desperation to try to undo the Court's sound conclusion that
P&ID's $10 billion award is enforceable," P&ID said, adding that
the award is now worth $10 billion due to interest accrued.
Attorney General Abubakar Malami and other government
officials have repeatedly said that an investigation this year
by the country's anti-graft unit had uncovered proof of fraud.
"The challenge argues that the (contract) was procured on
the basis of fraud and corruption, while the subsequent arbitral
process was riddled with irregularities and deliberately
concealed from the rest of the government," Malami's spokesman
said in an emailed statement.
The attorney general's office calculates the total to be
roughly $9.7 billion. Details on the evidence uncovered were not
available as the spokesman said that court filings and documents
are sealed until they are referred to in open court.
Nigeria's anti-graft unit has already charged a former
government lawyer with allegedly taking bribes and charged two
Britons with money laundering in relation to the case.
The 2010 deal called for P&ID, which was set up solely for
the project, to build a gas processing plant, and for the
government to supply it with gas.
It collapsed without any construction taking place, though
P&ID said it spent $40 million on a design and feasibility
study. P&ID initiated arbitration in 2012, and in 2017, a UK
tribunal awarded P&ID $6.6 billion, plus interest, based on what
it could have earned over two decades.
The award is accruing more than $1 million in interest per
day, and is now worth close to a quarter of Nigeria's foreign
reserves.