The Court of Appeal has reversed the decision of the Federal High Court ("FHC") in Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc ("Stanbic") v Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) & Anor (2015), which had held that failure to obtain NOTAP approval (on a registrable contract) rendered the contract illegal and void; and payment could not be made on an unregistered contract.
The Court of Appeal held that NOTAP's scope does not cover contracts for exporting technology out of Nigeria and section 7 of the NOTAP Act does not deal with or provide for the validity or legality of unregistered or non-registration of contract(s) under Section 4(d). And the NOTAP Act does not render such contracts as invalid, illegal, null and void.
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