What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Some of our more recent activities include:

Project Gazelle, a $3.3bn facility with Afreximbank as lead arranger; the acquisition of a sizable equity interest in a Floating LNG facility to be located offshore Nigeria; the acquisition of a significant stake in a new build refinery in Nigeria; and the management of divestment of equity interest from certain joint ventures by some International Oil Companies.

How does the in-house legal function contribute to the overall dispute resolution strategy of the organisation?

NNPC, being one of the largest companies in Africa and the National Oil Company of Nigeria, is often in the eye of many storms and of many controversies in the oil and gas sector. It is incumbent on the Legal team to minimise our involvement in disputes because the cost of dispute resolution is high. Our first strategy – and often the most important one – is to prevent the dispute from occurring. This requires constant monitoring of contractual terms to make sure they are fit for purpose and fair to both parties, thereby eliminating one area of stress. Second is to work with our affiliate companies which are often NNPC’s primary point of contact with contractors and the public, to be sure that flashpoints do not occur.

While arbitration remains an important part of our dispute resolution strategy, it is very expensive, and one wonders if the so-called advantage of timeliness and certainty exist. This is because almost all arbitration awards are re-litigated in the High Courts, so we are considering whether to simply submit disputes to the High Courts immediately and try to speed up judicial adjudication there. Where we do insert arbitration clauses, we are insisting on sole arbitrators rather than a three-person panel, except for the most major and complex contracts.

In general, what would you like to see change about the external law firms you use?

NNPC is an attractive client and like many other top companies, we have access to the best law firms and advocates, and they work with us to achieve our goals. And while I – like every general counsel – would prefer reduced costs, we recognise the savings in engaging top quality firms. My advice is not to firms that already work for us, but rather to law firms that want to work for us:

Be realistic about your limitations. It is good to be ambitious and to present your firm in the best light, but don’t tell me about your firm’s seven practice areas when you only have four lawyers. Being a small firm is okay.

We all have only one chance to make a good first impression. Let your documents be neat, don’t use photocopied letterheads, check your spelling, punctuation and grammar. Dress neat. Speak confidently. If you don’t know an issue, be upfront about it. Nobody knows everything and that’s why we have research assistants.

Keep to deadlines. If you cannot keep to a particular deadline, let us know as soon as possible and hopefully the reason is cogent.

This will sound strange coming from a paying customer, but don’t undervalue yourself. If you know your worth, don’t be shy. But don’t overvalue yourself either.

Try to have a dedicated email address. We are reluctant to send sensitive documents to Gmail and Yahoo addresses!