ICC Tribunal Questions $500,000 Transfer to Atiku’s Then-Wife in Mambilla Dispute

An ICC arbitration tribunal found that Sunrise Power promoter Leno Adesanya did not provide sufficient evidence to support his claim that a $500,000 payment to Jennifer Douglas in January 2003 was a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for then Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. Adesanya said the money was sent through his offshore company, China Castle Investments, after naira was allegedly paid for dollars. However, the tribunal noted that no records of the naira payment, exchange rate, instructions, correspondence or other documentation were produced. It also found that China Castle was not licensed to conduct foreign-exchange transactions. The payment was made shortly after Sunrise presented its Mambilla hydropower proposal and months before the company relied on a disputed 2003 letter as the basis for claiming it had been awarded the project. The tribunal said it could not accept Adesanya’s explanation for the transfer, citing the lack of corroboration and inconsistencies in his evidence. Atiku and Douglas did not testify in the arbitration, and the tribunal did not find that Atiku personally directed the payment. It dismissed Sunrise’s multibillion-dollar claims against Nigeria and ordered Sunrise and Adesanya to pay most of Nigeria’s legal costs, with recoverable costs placed at about $11.82 million.

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