London Court Freezes Oil Tycoon Abdulrahman Bashar’s Global Asset Over $40m Unpaid Debt

MICHAEL AKINOLA

Nigerian oil magnate and Chairman, Rahamaniyya Group, Abdulrahman Musa Bashar has suddenly lost control of his fortune as a London High Court granted a worldwide freezing order against him and locking up his assets across the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, the United Kingdom and France valued at close to $170 million.

The order made on Monday March 30 is one of the harshest remedies in English law.

It bars Bashar and his UAE-registered Ultimate Oil and Gas FZCO, from disposing of or dealing with any assets anywhere in the world up to the outstanding debt, which stands at roughly $40 million.

The dispute traces back to oil deals between 2022 and 2023, when Dubai-based Petrichor Energy FZCO took spot and term contracts with Ultimate to supply gasoil and Jet-A1 aviation fuel.

Bashar’s Ultimate received the cargoes but failed to pay in full, pushing Petrichor into parallel arbitration and court proceedings.

Bashar signed a personal payment agreement in January 2024 to settle the matter, backed by a personal guarantee and nine signed, undated checks. Ultimate never paid. When Petrichor presented the checks, Bashar’s bank rejected every one. By February 2025, the English court had entered judgment, with about $40 million still outstanding.

Bashar’s conduct after the judgment turned the case sharper. The court found he had sold UAE properties worth roughly $3.8 million without putting any proceeds toward the debt, and accepted evidence that he told Petrichor’s managing director on March 15 he would “dispose of” his assets if Petrichor rejected a revised repayment proposal.

The judge concluded this looked like a “will not pay, rather than cannot pay” case.

The court also flagged gaps in disclosure. Nigerian assets including petrol stations and a residential property reportedly worth more than $21 million were missing from earlier filings.

Bashar is no stranger to courtroom losses. An England and Wales High Court judge sentenced him to 10 months in prison in February 2020 for disobeying orders in a Sahara Energy Resources case after Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas failed to supply more than 6,400 metric tons of gas. A Dubai court then convicted him in absentia in January 2025 in a separate check-fraud matter tied to CI Energy and gave him a year.

Petrichor is now pushing enforcement across three jurisdictions, with parallel actions in the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts and Nigerian courts.

An April 17 English injunction also tells two of Bashar’s affiliates, Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas and Zamson Global Resources, to give Petrichor access to a Koko Storage Depot in Delta State for unpaid gasoil cargoes. Non-compliance could expose Bashar to contempt.