The Chief Executive Officer of Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas Limited, Abdulrahman Bashir has been jailed in the United Kingdom.
England and Wales High Court’s Justice Butcher sentenced Bashir after he was found guilty of contravening multiple orders of the court in a pending suit filed by Sahara Energy Resources Ltd.
Bashir who was sentenced to 10 months in prison had been directed to accept the requests for the release of 6,400.69 metric tonnes gas oil to Sahara Energy Resource Ltd or the agent of the company from Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas Ltd, Jetty 6.436181, Ibafon, Kirikiri Waterfront, of Aero Maritime Street, Apapa, Lagos, Nigeria (“the Terminal”).
This was in accordance with the deal Ultimate Oil and Gas, the trading arm of Rahamaniyya Oil in the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), entered into with Sahara Energy in 2018. In the duly signed contract, Ultimate Oil and Gas agreed to buy, and Sahara Energy agreed to sell 15,000 metric tonnes in the Vacuum of Gas Oil.
A Collateral Management Agreement (CMA) that contained a London arbitration clause was signed by both parties in July 8, 2018 and it was later discovered that Rahamaniyya agreed to store the gas oil at its terminal pending payment by Ultimate.
According to Premium Times, Sahara Energy delivered a total of 14,967.159 metric tonnes of gas oil to the terminal of Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas in Nigeria and also generated invoices for the gas oil on October 26, 2018 for USD 10,760,728.77. The payment was expected to be made on August 29, 2019 but Ultimate Oil and Gas defaulted in making the payments.
In December 2018, Sahara Energy and Ultimate Oil entered into a settlement agreement in which it was confirmed by Ultimate Oil that the value of gas oil that had been delivered was USD 10,760,728.77, and pledged to make instalmental payments for it.
Court records revealed that some payments were made but Ultimate Oil reneged in meeting the terms of the settlement agreement in full by ensuring that outstanding payments were cleared. After a series of warnings, Sahara Energy terminated the settlement agreement on May 10, 2019 and notified Ultimate Oil that its agent, Asharami Synergy Plc would deliver part of the remaining gas oil from the terminal.
Efforts were made by Sahara Energy to obtain delivery of the gas oil to ni avail and that led to the lawsuit which was filed in Lagos and in the United Kingdom.
While delivering the third order after a contempt of court judgement, Justice Butcher 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.”
Also, there was a binding indication that the sentence could be cut down to six months if Bashir abide by the relevant order he had previously breached.
