Court orders Nigeria’s downstream regulator to keep licensing fuel importers
Published in Brief No. 1 ·
The Federal High Court in Abuja ruled for three fuel marketers against the NMDPRA, holding that the Petroleum Industry Act sets the criteria for import licences and that the regulator has no discretion to refuse applicants who meet them. Licensing actions that breach the Act were declared null and void. The decision cuts against the Dangote refinery’s push to restrict imports; a separate Dangote suit is pending in Lagos.
A significant first-instance limit on regulatory discretion under the PIA. Trading, supply and storage contracts that assume import access gain support, but an appeal is likely: build change-of-law and licence-loss protections into those contracts.
Sources: JURIST ↗ · The Rio Times ↗
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