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

The NLNG Legal Team comprises experienced lawyers, compliance professionals, and administrative support staff, collectively delivering comprehensive legal and compliance monitoring services to the NLNG Group. The NLNG Group consists of three entities:

Owner and operator of one of the world’s largest Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants, with an asset base exceeding US$16mn and a nameplate capacity of 22 million tonnes per annum. The company is currently constructing an additional train that will increase capacity to 30 million tonnes per annum.

Our team supports a broad spectrum of transactions and activities, ensuring legal coverage across all jurisdictions where the NLNG Group operates and/or has business interactions. Adopting a proactive service delivery model, legal support is embedded within business functions, enabling robust legal oversight and risk management from the inception of critical activities. Some significant transactions during the past year or so included:

Successfully negotiated and executed new third-party long-term gas supply agreements, marking a significant shift from the traditional model which has been in place for over three decades. This initiative secures additional feed gas sources, enhancing NLNG’s production capacity, and preserves company value amid the ever-shifting market dynamics.

Negotiated and executed loan arrangements totalling USD1.35 billion in Q1 2025, whilst at the same time managing an existing loan portfolio of USD3 billion and progressing an additional ship financing transaction valued at approximately US$900mn.

Successfully defended the company in litigation and significant arbitration claims, achieving closure of 13 cases within the past year.  It is worth noting generally speaking, that the legal team manages a contingent liability portfolio valued at nearly a billion dollars.

Negotiation and management of contractor claims across NLNG’s portfolio of over 30 projects, ranging across the various categories of small to mega scale. In 2025 alone, the team negotiated claims worth nearly US$1bn, achieving reductions of over 80%.

Delivered direct cost savings exceeding US$500mn in 2025 to the business, reinforcing the team’s commitment to creating and preserving value beyond its traditional advisory role.

What role does corporate counsel play in strengthening corporate governance in light of Nigeria’s recent reforms and stakeholder expectations?

Corporate counsel are actually the backbone of corporate governance, and the roles and responsibilities they have in this regard are also quite broad. First, corporate counsel are tasked with providing the interpretation, and guidance for the implementation of any laws, regulations guidelines within an organisation. Once the relevant compliance requirements and obligations have been identified, they then design the frameworks for compliance which must then be embedded into the governance architecture of the organisation – its policies, procedures, charters and responsible roles, so that it can be cascaded into ways of working. This also ensures that legal risk assessments are conducted across the business and prior to making any strategic decisions.

The duties of in-house counsel also extend upwards, as they are responsible for the performance and effectiveness of the board of directors. Corporate counsel are responsible for advising the board on various matters from its composition to compliance with any regulatory and fiduciary responsibilities. Legal also carries out various governance reviews, director trainings and more, to reinforce the accountability of the members of the board.

At NLNG, the legal team runs a legal learning academy as part of this process, to ensure that knowledge sessions are held across the organisation developing awareness of relevant regulatory and statutory obligations, as well as industry trends to ensure the entire workforce is involved.

How is your legal team navigating Nigeria’s evolving regulatory compliance requirements, particularly under CAMA 2020, ISA 2025, and Central Bank directives?

NLNG operates a strict compliance culture in relation to its regulatory obligations, and has set up different processes to ensure timely compliance with its regulatory obligations. It prides itself on being a responsible corporate citizen and has adopted a collaborative approach with its stakeholders, including the deployment of tools such as service level agreements, periodic review meetings all structured to be proactive in the compliance space.

Where there are however any perceived conflicts, deemed multiplicity of regulations or challenges regarding expectations relating to any of the regulatory obligations, the same collaborative approach provides a platform for deeper and focused engagements with the relevant stakeholders, whether its shareholders, community elements, or even regulators first to obtain clarity and then to align on the best way forward.  This approach has been very well received even by the regulators and most of the time, both the company and regulators recognising they are working for the same objective, are able to find alignment and progress any such compliance requirements amicably. Our standard approach for managing regulatory compliance requirements can be summed up in two words: compliance and collaboration.