Your Judicial Review application is unmeritorious-High Court to ENI Ghana

The High Court (Commercial Division) has dismissed a judicial review application filed by ENI Ghana Exploration and Production Limited.

The Court presided over by Justice Emmanuel Kwesi Mensah held that ENI’s Judicial Review application is unmeritorious thus dismissed same.

On April 12, 2021, ENI filed an originating Notice of Motion for Judicial Review pursuant to order 55 of the High Court(Civil Procedure) seeking the following reliefs and remedies;

a.A declaration that the purported directive of the Minister of Energy dated October 14 and 16, 2020 purportedly posing terms and conditions for the unitization of the Afina Oil discovery in West Cape Three Points Block 2 Area(WCTR2) and Sankofa Canomanian Oil Fields Sankofa field in offshore Cape Three Points Area(OCTP) are illegal.

b.A declaration that the Minister did not follow due process of law in issuing the purported directives.

c.A declaration that the purported directives are arbitrary, unfair, and unreasonable.

d.An order quashing the purported directives among others.

In April 2020, the then Minister of Energy, Mr. John Peter Amewu, per Section 34(1) of the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act, 2016 (Act 919), directed ENI and Springfield to execute unitisation concerning the Sankofa field in the OCTP and Afina discovery in the WCTP contract areas.

Before the directive, the Minister had been satisfied by a geophysical and geological analysis in March 2018, which showed that the Sankofa Cenomanian Reservoir extended into the WCTP Block 2 contract area.

The situation saw the industry stakeholders calling on the government to encourage the companies to use arm’s length dialogue and a common-sense approach to resolve the differences between the companies to produce oil from the straddling fields.

ENI has also filed a suit at the International Tribunal in London challenging the 2019 Unitization order of the Ministry of Energy.

Recently, a High Court in Accra in a landmark judgment endorsed the said directive of the Ministry of Energy.

In its ruling on the application, the High Court outlined some reasons for its position on the application indicating that;

1. The motion paper to the application is incompetent.

2. The affidavit in support of the application does not state the reliefs claimed by the applicants in the proceedings.

3. The reliefs and remedies sought by the applicants are rather on the face of the motion paper.

4. There was a defect relative to the title of the application.

Read the full ruling below;

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