The WTO Agreement on Subsidies and the Fiscal Incentive Regime under the Nigerian Local Content Act: a Compatibility Assessment

摘要

In this article, the author examines the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act in order to determine whether or not s.48 of the Act is contrary to the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (the SCM Agreement). The author submits that s.48 of the Act does not contravene the SCM Agreement as the provision does not impose any export-performance or local-content requirements, but rather codifies the intention of the Nigerian Government to establish fiscal frameworks that provide fiscal and tax incentives to foreign and indigenous companies in the oil and gas sector where they locate production facilities and operations in Nigeria. However, the author concludes that, if the fiscal frameworks that are established on the basis of s.48 were to impose export-performance or local-content requirements, that such requirements would potentially be in breach of the SCM Agreement.