Abdulrahman Bashir, the Chief Executive Officer of Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas Limited has been sentenced to 10 months imprisonment in the United Kingdom.
In February, Justice Butcher of England and Wales High Court ruled that Bashir be imprisoned for breaching multiple orders of the court in a pending suit instituted by Sahara Energy Resources Ltd, Premium Times reports.
Bashir had been ordered to comply with requests for the release of 6,400.69 metric tonnes gas oil to Sahara Energy Resource Ltd or its agent from Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas Ltd in Apapa, Lagos state.
This was in line with the deal Ultimate Oil and Gas, the trading arm of Rahamaniyya Oil in the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), entered into a deal with Sahara Energy in 2018.
In a signed contract, Ultimate agreed to buy 15,000 metric tonnes in the Vacuum of Gas Oil from Sahara.
A Collateral Management Agreement (CMA) containing a London arbitration clause was entered into on July 8, 2018 between the two parties.
It was gathered that Rahamaniyya agreed to store the gas oil at its terminal in Lagos pending payment to Sahara by Ultimate.
Premium Times reports that Sahara delivered a total of 14,967.159 metric tonnes of gas oil to Rahamaniyya’s terminal and also issued invoices for the gas oil on October 26, 2018 for USD 10,760,728.77.
The payment should have been made by August 29, 2019 but Ultimate defaulted in making necessary payments.
Back in December 2018, Ultimate and Sahara entered into a settlement agreement in which Ultimate confirmed that the value of gas oil that had been delivered was USD 10,760,728.77, and agreed to make a series of monthly payments for it.
Court records showed that some payments were made, in consequence of which some 8,566.469 metric tonnes of gas oil was released to Ultimate.
Ultimate, however defaulted in performing the terms of the settlement agreement in full by making all the payments.
After various warnings, Sahara on May 10, 2019 terminated the settlement agreement, notifying Ultimate that its agent, Asharami Synergy Plc would take delivery of part of the remaining gas oil from the terminal.
Various attempts made by Sahara to obtain delivery of the remaining gas oil were futile, leading to the lawsuit which was filed both in Lagos and in the United Kingdom.
Justice Butcher who delivered the ruling following a contempt of court judgement said;
The basis of the sentence was that Mr Bashir had committed continuing breaches of the order of Mr Justice Robin Knowles of 1 August 2019 and of the order of Mr Justice Bryan of 6 September 2019.
There are also a binding indication that the sentence could be reduced to six months if Bashir complies with the relevant order which had previously been breached.
He was also fined £500,000 while Adebowale Aderemi, its manager, was fined £10,000.
