Investor sues FBN over stalled payment of court-awarded damages

A customer with the First Bank of Nigeria (FBN), MarketBridge Ltd, has sued the bank over failure to honour a court order to pay N12m after a failed investment in the bank.

Daily Trust reported that in June 2020, MarketBridge dragged FBN to a high court sitting in Minna over its N65m investment which the bank claimed was stolen by its staff.

The court, which ruled in the favour of the investor, asked the bank to pay the sum of N12m as special damages, general damage and cost of litigation.

According to the judgment of the court, about 36 days after MarketBridge issued instruction for termination of its call deposit with the bank and transfer of part thereof, on December 31, 2019, the defendant deposited the sum of N74,885,342.47 into the account of the plaintiff without any explanation or apology.

The bank refunded the customer’s fund after the customer,  MarketBridge, had lost the investment. The court’s judgment is for N12m damages and a written apology by the bank to the Plaintiffs.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja, the lawyer to MarketBridge, Mohammed Ndayako, SAN, said the bank went ahead to file an appeal at the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division without filing a brief of argument on why the damages need not be paid.

He added that the appeal that stalled the payment had reached its 45-day expiry date allowed by the Court of Appeal Rules and needed to be thrown out for abuse of court process.

“The underlining thing is that the bank claimed that its staff stole the customer’s money, used it for personal business and was not able to return the funds when MarketBridge demanded it.

“Dissatisfied with the manner, the bank was handling the matter, MarketBridge petitioned the Consumer Protection Department at the Central Bank of Nigeria whose intervention compelled FBN to pay the investor its funds.

“The court found FBN guilty of breach of its contract with MarketBridge and awarded these damages which the bank doesn’t want to pay. They filed an appeal to stall the payment and didn’t follow it up.

“Now MarketBridge has applied for dismissal of the appeal for lack of diligent prosecution in line with the Court of Appeal Rules because since the filing of the appeal they did not take any steps and the statutory time allowed the bank to file their brief of argument has since elapsed. They just left the appeal there to forestall the process from moving forward.”

When Daily Trust contacted First Bank’s head of media, Mr Ismail Omamegbe, to get the bank’s reaction, he did not respond to calls and messages sent to his number.

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