UPDATE! Chinese investors take over Nigeria’s guest houses in Liverpool, to sell on eBay for $2.2 million

A Chinese investment group racing to recover up to $70 million in arbitration awards from Nigeria has concluded plans to list two residential structures it confiscated from the country for sale on global online marketplace eBay, Peoples Gazette was told by people familiar with the arrangement

Zhongshang Fucheng Industrial Investment Ltd took possession of two buildings linked to the Nigerian government in Liverpool, United Kingdom, in June 2024, years after Nigeria failed to settle an arbitration judgement handed down in 2021, The Gazette learnt.

The properties, 15, Aigburth Hall Road, Liverpool and Beech Lodge, 49, Calderstones Road, Liverpool, were targeted after a December 2021 British court order gave Zhongshang executives the power to seize Nigerian assets in the UK to retrieve the $70 million payment, which remained outstanding as of August 20, 2024, with two per cent monthly interest accruals.

Zhongshang was awarded $55,675,000 plus interest of $9,400,000 and costs of £2,864,445 as of the date of the arbitration verdict on March 26, 2021, court documents said. The case stemmed from a dispute between Zhongshang and Ogun State. The firm said the state violated a 2001 trade treaty between Nigeria and China when its rights to a free trade zone were rescinded in 2016.