By Henry Ojelu

The national oil company of Cote d’ivoire, Petroci Holding says it will take necessary steps to ensure that it gets justice in the dispute with its Nigerian partner, MRS Oil Nigeria Plc over a US$675.8 joint venture deal.

Petroci Holding and Mrs Nigeria Plc are presently engaged in a legal tussle over the management of the assets of Chevron Texaco downstream distribution assets in West and Central Africa which they both acquired through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) called Corlay Global.

Amongst other allegations, Petroci Holding claimed that following its inability to fully participate in the administration of the joint venture business due to civil unrest in Cote d’ivoire back in 2008, some assets of the joint venture was allegedly mismanaged and dissipated by MRS Nigeria Plc.

Petroci also claimed that MRS Nigeria transferred some assets of Corlay Global to its MRS Africa Holding and also paid dividend to shareholders between 2010 and 2014 with its involvement.

Following an arbitration decision on March 24, 2021 and June 21, 2021 respectively over the consequential dispute arising from the disagreement in the joint venture business, particularly with respect to Petroci indebtedness to MRS in the acquisition of Corlay Global, Petroci insists that it is still being shut out from critical decision-making process of the company.

Last week, some officials of Petroci who were in Lagos to attend a crucial Annual General Meeting of the company said they were prevented from gaining entry into the venue of the meeting.

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Speaking on the development, Petroci Director-General, Dr. Ibrahima Diaby said the company will explore all legal means possible to ensure that justice is secured in the matter.

Diaby said: “We will continue to follow every legal means available to ensure that we get justice in this matter. This issue is capable of discouraging investors from coming into Nigeria to do business.

“We are writing to the Federal Government of Nigeria and Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, to help look into this unfortunate incident of our being locked out of the AGM.

“MRS should abide by the terms in the arbitral award, to which they already acknowledged and even demanded the account number of Petroci to pay the money into.

Vanguard News Nigeria