The High Court of Justice, Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, Commercial Court (KBD) presided over by Mr. Justice Bryan, has granted world freezing order against a Nigerian company, Ultimate Oil and Gaz FZCO, formerly known as Ultimate Oil & Gas DMCC and Alhaji Abdulrahman Musa Bashar.
The application was brought by Petrichor Energy FZCO (formerly known as CE Energy DMCC).
This was contained in the court judgement with Neutral Citation Number: [2026] EWHC 914 (Comm) and Case No: CL-2024-000225 / CL-2024-000426, which was made available to New Telegraph on Tuesday.
Petrichor Energy FZCO, a Dubai-headquartered energy trading house founded by took a Nigerian millionaire to court seeking to recover over disputed $30 million worth of oil products it supplied and was said not to have been paid for.
It is Petrichor’s attempt to recover losses dating back three years for shipments of gasoil contracted to Nigeria’s Ultimate Oil & Gas, owned by Nigerian millionaire businessman Alhaji Abdulrahman Musa Bashar.
Bryan in the judgement said: “I am satisfied that it is just and convenient to grant a worldwide freezing order in the present case for the following reasons: (1) The application is made post-judgment in order to assist with enforcing judgment. (2) The judgment debts are for significant sums. (3) I am satisfied that the Respondents have assets which will be caught by the injunction and so the relief will be effective; (4) I bear in mind that the Original WFO did not prevent Ultimate from being able to continue to trade and was able to make payments of millions of dollars to purchase product from third parties.
“Ultimate made a complaint that the requirement to notify the Applicant’s legal representatives before disposing of assets in the ordinary and proper course of its business was onerous, and that was addressed at the time by a variation to the Original WFO to insert a threshold of $100,000.
“However, such an objection carries far less weight post-judgment where the inclusion of a business expenditure exception is harder to justify (see Emmott v Michael Wilson & Partners Ltd [2019] 4 WLR 53 (CA) at [56], and see Great Station Properties (supra.) at [66]).
“That is a factor which may be relevant on a return date in terms of whether or not such a term should continue; and (5) I am satisfied that the Applicant has come to the court with clean hands, although I bear well in mind the point that has been drawn to my attention about an historic WhatsApp exchange.”
According to the judgement,made on 30 March 2026; Petrichor Energy FZCO (the “Applicant”) applied for a post-judgment worldwide freezing order against the First Respondent Alhaji Abdulrahman Musa Bashar (“Mr Bashar”) and the Second Respondent, Ultimate Oil & Gas FZCO (“Ultimate”).
It explained that the judgments relate to unpaid gasoil, sold by the Applicant to Ultimate and a personal guarantee given by Mr Bashar in support of Ultimate’s debt.
It added that the application is supported by the second affidavit of the Claimant’s solicitor, Mark David Lakin of Stephenson Harwood LLP (“Lakin 2”); and the affidavit of the Claimant’s Managing Director, Christopher Eppinger (“Eppinger 1”).
It explained that the application is made without notice.
Bryan said: “I was satisfied that it was appropriate for the hearing to proceed on a without notice basis due to the risk that giving notice would prompt the Respondents to take steps which would defeat the very purpose of the injunction, as was supported by the evidence of Mr Lakin (in Lakin 2 at paragraph 237).
“I was also satisfied that the matter was sufficiently urgent to be heard today on a without notice basis in circumstances where, as shall appear, there has recently been a conversation, on 15 March 2026, in the course of which Mr Bashar threatened to dissipate assets.
“It is right to note at the outset that the Applicant does not start with a blank canvas in relation to this application for a post-judgment worldwide freezing order in circumstances where the Applicant had obtained, on 29 July 2024, a pre-judgment ex parte worldwide freezing order against the Respondents (“the Original WFO”), which was granted by Robin Knowles J, but which was subsequently discharged by Mr Charles Hollander KC (sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court), that judgment being reported at [2024] EWHC 2846 (Comm) (“the Hollander Judgment”).
The reason why that injunction was discharged was because the judge considered that the court was not satisfied that there was a risk of dissipation within the well-known test.
In this regard, Mr Hollander KC stated at [61] as follows: “In many WFO cases where the Claimant seeks to show risk of dissipation, there is some positive evidence which supports risk of dissipation, and that evidence is bolstered by other evidence which, although not directly showing risk of dissipation, suggests that the defendant is the sort of individual or entity which by its conduct may dissipate assets.
“In such circumstances the strength of the Claimant’s case on the merits, the fact there is evidence of fraud by the defendants, that there is evidence of low standards of morality, or lack of frankness may provide the necessary material from which the court can infer risk of dissipation.
“But it all depends. The problem for the claimant in the present case is that there is no primary evidence which shows risk of dissipation…”
As was made clear to me at the outset of this application by counsel Nicola Allsop on behalf of the Applicant, the Applicant is not seeking to go behind the findings that the Court made on the material that was before it in October 2024.
“However, in essence,what is said is that matters have moved on, and have moved on significantly, in that regard and that is not limited to the fact that the Applicant has the benefit of significant judgments now against the Respondents, and yet, the Respondents, who on the disclosure aspect of the original freezing order disclosed assets of some $170 million in support of their application to discharge the Original WFO, have not paid the judgments.”
It added: “ The sum of AED 120,089,582.69 and £94,025.56 (approximately $32.7 million) is owed by Mr Bashar in respect of summary judgment in the PG Proceedings. The sum of AED 27,491,540.66 and £63,859.28 (approximately $7.5 million) is owed by Ultimate in respect of summary judgment in the New Spot Proceedings.”
