A legal dispute has emerged between Conoil Plc and NIMEX Petrochemicals Ltd. before the Federal High Court in Abuja over a contested $8,488,752.88 judgment debt.
The case centres on garnishee proceedings initiated by Nimex, which also joined five commercial banks as respondents in a bid to recover the alleged outstanding debt from funds belonging to Conoil held by the banks.
Garnishee proceedings are a legal process that allows a judgment creditor—who has already secured a monetary judgment—to recover the debt by attaching funds belonging to the judgment debtor that are held by third parties, typically banks.
According to court documents obtained by Nairametrics, Nimex filed a motion on notice through its counsel, Patrick Ikwueto, seeking enforcement of the debt.
The claimant said the court had earlier granted a temporary garnishee order, also known as an order nisi, attaching funds in the possession of the identified banks.
Ikwueto argued that a final judgment had previously been delivered by the Federal High Court in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/L/CS/252/2007 against Conoil over accumulated demurrage allegedly incurred from various shipments of petroleum products supplied by Nimex.
He said the outstanding obligation owed to his clients amounted to about $8.4m, representing the alleged judgment debt and 10 per cent post-judgment interest accruing from October 28, 2013, to July 2, 2025.
According to the claimant, while earlier garnishee proceedings were ongoing, the Central Bank of Nigeria deducted N4.3bn from Conoil’s account following a garnishee order to settle part of the debt.
However, the claimant insisted that the judgment debt was originally denominated in dollars and not naira.
Nimex further stated that its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Azmat Mohammed, confirmed in May 2025 that the sum of N4,347,126,048 was paid to the judgment creditors on July 2, 2025.
The claimant argued that based on the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market rate of N1,526 to one dollar as of July 2, 2025, the payment amounted to approximately $2.85m.
According to Nimex, calculations based on a 2025 judgment of the Court of Appeal put the total amount owed at about $11m, leaving an outstanding balance of roughly $8.4m.
The company therefore urged the court to declare that the remaining debt had not been settled and should be recovered through the garnishee proceedings.
However, Conoil has strongly challenged the claim.
In its motion filed before the court, the company’s lawyer, Ishaka Dikko, asked the court to set aside the temporary garnishee order issued by Justice Mohammed Umar.
Dikko argued that the order was allegedly obtained through fraud, misrepresentation, and suppression of material facts by Nimex.
He explained that Nimex had previously initiated garnishee proceedings that were made final by the court on October 20, 2015, to recover about $13.7m as judgment debt.
According to him, the sum of N4,347,126,048—representing the naira equivalent of $13,703,728—was subsequently withdrawn from Conoil’s bank account by the Central Bank of Nigeria and deposited in an interest-yielding account with the Chief Registrar of the court.
Dikko maintained that Nimex had already benefited from the funds and alleged that the company was now attempting to recover additional money based on new calculations of 10 per cent interest without clearly separating the principal debt from the accrued interest.
He accused the judgment creditors of attempting to receive compensation twice for the same obligation by seeking another garnishee order attaching $8,488,752.88.
The court is expected to determine whether the alleged outstanding debt remains valid or whether the previous payments already settled the obligation.
Garnishee proceedings remain one of the legal mechanisms through which creditors enforce monetary judgments, often involving banks as third-party respondents holding funds belonging to the debtor.
However, the final outcome of the dispute will depend on the ruling of the court.
