From Africa Intelligence

American-Nigerian oil man Kase Lawal‘s legal woes seem to be only just beginning. The liquidation of the Cayman Islands-registered company CAMAC International is being very closely tracked by the financial services division of the country’s Grand Court.

On April 9, two of the court’s representatives requested all recorded information relating to the company’s property or financial affairs from the Southern District of New York. The two liquidators want to get to the bottom of the dissipation of nearly $1 billion of assets held by CAMAC’s subsidiaries. The liquidators noted that CAMAC’s two indirect subsidiaries Allied Energy Nigeria and CAMAC International Nigeria (CNIL) transferred shares they held in American junior Erin Energy, of which Lawal was CEO from 2011 to 2016 (AEI 805). Although the then-current market value of Allied Energy’s shares in Erin Energy was approximately $164 million, they were then handed over to two firms, Oltasho Nigeria and Latmol Investment, before their voting rights were bought by Lawal himself for a mere $10. A string of similar cash flow transactions appear to have stripped parent group CAMAC of a total $1 billion.

In another case heard in November 2017, judge Tamika Montgomery-Reeves of the Court of Chancery in Delaware, where Erin is registered, already noted her surprise that with each the transactions involving Erin Energy, Allied Energy and CNIL, Lawal “appeared on all(…) sides of the transaction,” and that “in practice, his behaviour gave rise to a very real appearance that (…), Lawal really was negotiating with himself in shifting around assets for his own benefit.”