The UK Court of Appeal has dismissed former Delta State Governor James Ibori’s appeal against a £101.5 million confiscation order linked to proceeds of crime.
In a judgement delivered on Tuesday, the court rejected Mr Ibori’s argument that it was disproportionate to adjust the value of money held in frozen bank accounts for inflation when calculating the amount he must forfeit.
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The three-member panel, comprising Justice Andrew Popplewell, Justice Simon Bryan and Judge Nicholas Dean, held that the inflation adjustment was justified under the applicable confiscation law.
Mr Ibori, previously convicted of fraud and money laundering charges in the United Kingdom, had sought to reduce the order by about £4.3 million, from £101.51 million to approximately £97.21 million, by challenging the application of the adjustment to certain bank accounts.
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The court, however, held that there was nothing disproportionate about applying the adjustment to assets covered by a restraint order, even where their value had not increased at the same rate as inflation.
“There is nothing disproportionate in applying the CVM uplift to assets subject to a restraint order merely because they have not increased in value by as much as the CVM, or at all, when restrained,” the judges said.
CVM refers to the “change in value” of money, an adjustment that accounts for inflation when courts calculate the value of criminal proceeds for confiscation.
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Why the court rejected Ibori’s argument
Mr Ibori, jailed for 13 years in April 2012 after pleading guilty to 10 counts of fraud and money laundering, argued that applying the inflation adjustment to money in frozen accounts amounted to an excessive interference with his property rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.
His lawyers contended that he could not use the restrained money to earn returns or increase its value after the accounts were frozen. They argued that requiring him to pay the adjusted amount would penalise him for gains he could not make.
The court rejected that argument, holding that the adjustment formed part of the statutory scheme for valuing criminal proceeds at the time they were obtained and ensuring that confiscation orders reflected their present-day monetary value.
The judges also held that the restraint order was a consequence of Mr Ibori’s criminal conduct and the risk that he might dissipate assets to frustrate confiscation proceedings.
They said the effect of the restraint order could have been avoided had he disclosed his criminal proceeds and agreed to return them at the earliest opportunity.
The court said Mr Ibori’s choices were central to its decision, including his resistance to the confiscation proceedings. It said the restraint order’s effect on the Nigerian bank accounts could have been avoided if he had accepted that the money was criminal proceeds and agreed to transfer it to the Crown.
“The very lengthy delay in this case was entirely Mr Ibori’s fault in his persistent resistance to the making of the order,” the judges said.
They added that the fact that he might have to pay the adjusted amount from other assets was “irrelevant” to the calculation.
The judges said confiscation law required him to pay for the value of the criminal benefit he obtained from available assets, whether those assets were themselves proceeds of crime or legitimately acquired.
They held that the legislation required him to pay the value of the criminal benefit when obtained, even if he no longer held the original proceeds or their full inflation-adjusted value.
“For these reasons Mr Ibori’s appeal is dismissed,” the court concluded.
Dispute over the bank accounts
The appeal concerned two categories of assets identified in the confiscation proceedings.
The first involved four Nigerian bank accounts, which Mr Ibori’s lawyers said did not earn interest. The inflation adjustment applied to those accounts amounted to £10,265.17.
The court found that the evidence did not clearly establish when the accounts had been effectively frozen or the precise period covered by the adjustment. It said it was more likely than not that the accounts had remained available to Mr Ibori for years after the frauds.
The second category involved seven bank accounts held by investment companies in Liechtenstein, Hong Kong, Austria and Nigeria, containing a total of £12.49 million.
The court found that those accounts did not form part of the criminal benefit used to calculate the confiscation order. Instead, the relevant benefit in that category consisted of money paid into three Access Bank accounts in Nigeria in 2006.
The judges said the Crown had traced the money through a complex network of transactions and companies, but the later accounts identified by Mr Ibori were not the basis on which the confiscation amount had been calculated.
His argument concerning those accounts was therefore misconceived, the court held.
Background to Ibori’s conviction
Mr Ibori governed oil-rich Delta State from 1999 to 2007.
The UK Court of Appeal said he deliberately and systematically defrauded the people he had been elected to represent, with the proceeds laundered through companies and bank accounts around the world.
The frauds included inflated contracts for the construction of a sports track and the supply of vehicles to the Delta State Government, as well as the diversion of public funds for his personal benefit.
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The case also involved the sale of Delta State’s shares in V Mobile, a Nigerian telecommunications company. The court found that entities established to advise on and negotiate the sale received fees that were diverted to the intended beneficiaries of the fraud, principally Mr Ibori and another governor.
Mr Ibori was extradited from the United Arab Emirates to the UK in April 2011 to face charges. He pleaded guilty to offences including conspiracy to defraud and money laundering and was sentenced to 13 years in prison on 17 April 2012.
He was deported to Nigeria in December 2016 after serving his sentence.
Mr Ibori continues to exert political influence in the state more than a decade after he was convicted of defrauding the state.
PREMIUM TIMES previously reported that, in July 2023, a UK court ordered him to forfeit £101.5 million, representing the criminal benefit established by the court, after years of confiscation proceedings.
The confiscation proceedings followed a restraint order first granted in 2007 and subsequently replaced in 2008 under the applicable legal regime. The proceedings continued for years, with the substantive hearing held in 2020 and the court delivering its main findings in October 2022 before making the final confiscation order in July 2023.
Mr Ibori’s appeal challenged only the application of the inflation adjustment to the confiscation calculation.
The Court of Appeal has now dismissed that challenge, leaving the £101.51 million order intact.
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