Abacha moves challengedNIGERIA: Dechert is seeking an injunction to prevent Home Secretary revealing bank details City firm Dechert will this week attempt to block Home Office moves to help the Nigerian government trace more than $2 billion allegedly looted from the country by former president Sani Abacha.Dechert is acting for members of the embattled Abacha family, including Mohammed Abacha, the son of the former dictator who died in 1998.Last week Home Secretary Jack Straw agreed to co-operate with Nigeria by supplying its investigators with documents from London bank accounts.

His decision triggered an official investigation by the Financial Services Authority and other regulators, into the allegations that money stolen by Abacha was laundered through City institutions.

A spokesman for Dechert told the Gazette that no allegations had been proved in respect of its clients.

Dechert will lodge an application with the Crown Office of the High Court, seeking leave for judicial review of the home secretarys decision.

The firm will also seek an injunction to prevent the home secretary revealing bank details pending any judicial review proceedings.Yves Klein, an assistant at Hauchmann Monfrini & Bottge, the Swiss law firm acting for the Nigerian government in its attempted recovery, said: They have used all other proceedings outside the UK to block recovery.

He was confident of getting the information.The Swiss firm has previously said that it knows of law firms which were involved with criminal organisations in laundering the money (see [2001] Gazette, 12 April, 4).

There is no suggestion that Dechert, or SJ Berwin, which acted for the Abacha family until March 2000, are in any way involved in this.

The Dechert spokesman said the Nigerian government was not playing this straight and that the case is far more complicated than it appears.

He said Mohammed Abacha had voluntarily repaid $750 million held in foreign bank accounts by Mohammed on trust for the Nigerian people shortly after his father Sani Abachas death.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said that it would only comment once it received actual confirmation of Decherts application.Dechert has court permission to receive payment from bank accounts belonging to the Abacha family in London, which were otherwise frozen in 1999 following civil proceedings.

Eversheds is the solicitors firm of record for the Nigerian government in London in relation to parallel civil proceedings.Jeremy Fleming