Justice O.O Olatunji of the Oyo state high court sitting at Ring road, Ibadan on Monday, fixed hearing in a N250m damages suit filed against Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) Plc for February 16, 2017, after approving the bank’s motion seeking extension of time to file their defense pursuant to Order 44, Rule 4 of the Civil Procedure Rules.
The court gave the date after granting the bank’s request for extension of time and the plaintiff’s request to withdraw its application asking the court to give a default judgment after GTB failed to file its defense within the specified time frame stipulated by law.
The claimants – Kelvin Industries Nigeria Limited and Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju had filed a Writ of Summons before the court, asking for an order directing GTB to write a letter of apology to them for the bank’s misrepresentation about them to the Central Bank of Nigeria that they are indebted to the tune of N1, 717, 121. 31.
They further asked that the court give an order directing GTB to write the Central Bank of Nigeria stating that they are not indebted to it and the sum of N19, 167, 987.69 as special damages being the loss sustained by the claimants between February and May 2016 as well as N250m general damages for losses sustained due to GTB’s false statement about the company’s financial standing to CBN.
According to the claimants, the false statement to CBN resulted in the company being blacklisted and deprived of a loan and overdraft facility as lack of funds stopped it from producing maximally, adding that this led to psychological torture, loss of integrity, goodwill and customers.
Kelvin Industries in its statement of claim before the court stated that Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju, a Director and signatory to its account had asked that the account domiciled in Abuja be transferred to Ibadan and this was effected by GTB and they were given a new account number after the bank charged the sum of N33, 954. 80 as withholding tax while the sum of N37, 188, 241. 18 which was the balance in the account was transferred to the account in Ibadan.
The company averred that it continued using the Ibadan account since it believed that the Abuja account had been closed and was no longer operational, adding that it did not know that between April 30, 2009 and March 31, 2016, the bank had embarked on frivolous and wrongful charges as COT and VAT on an account that was supposed to be nonexistent, resulting in a debit of N1, 717, 121.31, adding that without having a loan facility, GTB continued to wrongfully capitalized interest contrary to regular banking regulations.
The company concluded that it never knew about the problem until Access bank stopped an overdraft facility following its being blacklisted by CBN based on GTB’s wrong claims and this affected its production and destabilized its plan of paying back its loan to the Bank Of Industry as it operated a low key production for four months before it had to shut down for a while.
In its defense, GTB agreed that the claimant was right but what happened was an error and not intentional. The bank said it was their system that erroneously charged COT for the transfer of fund from the company’s old account to the new account, adding that they did not report the company to CBN but merely gave information about the claimant’s account and that CBN did not blacklist the claimant.
The bank further claimed that they made an innocent mistake of not closing the claimant’s old account as asked though the claimant is contesting the defense.
After pending applications had been argued, the court adjourned the matter till February 16 for mention.
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