Justice C.J. Aneke of a Federal High Court in Lagos has said that Access Bank Plc cannot enforce a judgment given in its favour by a London Court, ordering a former Managing Director of the defunct Intercontinental Bank Plc, Erastus Akingbola, to pay Access a sum £654m (N212.2bn).
The High Court of Justice, Queens Bench, in London, had on August 1, 2012, ordered Akingbola to pay Access Bank the sum of £654m as restitution following its judgment that the former bank MD perpetrated fraudulent practices while he was at the helms of the defunct Intercontinental Bank.
Intercontinental Bank was acquired by Access Bank on January 31, 2012.
In a bid to enforce the order of the London Court, Access Bank had earlier asked a Lagos High Court in Igbosere to register the foreign judgment so that it could recover the judgment sum from Akingbola.
The presiding judge in the case, Justice A.A. Oyebanji, had ruled in favour of the bank by registering the foreign judgment of Justice Michael Burton, dated September 13, 2012, ordering Akingbola to go ahead and pay the bank.
Akingbola, however, had through his lawyer, Chief Oluwole Olanipekun (SAN), filed an application dated September 27, 2013 before Justice Babajide Candide-Johnson of the same court, asking to quash the registration of the foreign judgment for lack of jurisdiction.
While granting Akingbola’s prayer, Justice Candide-Johnson had held that registering the foreign judgment was in contravention of the Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgment Act of 1958.
The judge also declared that the Lagos High Court lacked jurisdiction to register the judgment but he had refused Akingbola’s prayer seeking to restrain Access Bank from enforcing the London judgment in any other court.
The bank had consequently approached the Federal High Court, seeking the enforcement.
But Justice Aneke on Monday also turned down the application and ruled that the judgment was not enforceable in Nigeria. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com