Diversion of Customers Money: UBA withdraws Case out of Court

Fri, Sep 8, 2017 | By publisher


Featured, Special Report

 

The United Bank of Africa Plc voluntarily withdraws the case it instituted in the Federal High Court, Lagos, against Lloyds energy Limited who is accusing the bank of fraudulently diverting its N123 million thereby ruining its business

 

By Maureen Chigbo

THE United Bank of Africa, UBA, has withdrawn its case against the Lloyds Energy Limited from the Federal High Court, Lagos. The withdrawal of the court case is coming barely a month after Realnews ran a story entitled: “Exclusive: How Bankers’ Committee Covers Up UBA’s Diversion of Customer’s N123m.” The story provided details of how the UBA allegedly fraudulently diverted N123 million belonging to Lloyds Energy Limited. The bank also threatened to deal with the customer when he complained about the diversion to the Bankers’ Committee, dragging him to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission who found nothing incriminating against him. It also sent his name to the credit bureau making it impossible for the customer to source for funds from other banks.

Realnews gathered that the Bankers’ Committee chided the bank for causing it untold embarrassment when the story broke. Consequently, UBA, filed its notice of discontinuance pursuant to order 50 Rule 2 of the Federal High Court filed in Suit No FHC/L/CS/886/2014 between the bank and Lloyds Energy Limited and Barry Esimone, an engineer.

UBA, in the notice filed on July 27, 2017, which is in possession of Realnews, told the court to: “Take notice that the plaintiff intends to wholly discontinue this suit against the defendants and the suit is thereby wholly discontinues against the defendants.”

The notice was signed by Oluwakemi Balogun, SAN, counsel to UBA, along with other lawyers such as Jonathan Onyekwelu, Marcellus Onah, Amina Yusufu and Chidozie ndukwe. They are all from Oluwakemi Balogun and Co, legal practitioners and notaries public, Insolvency and Maritime practioners based in Lagos.

The notice was served on A.O.O Adeyemi, counsel to the defendants.

Despite discontinuing the case, UBA is yet to return Llyods Energy Limited’s money which it allegedly diverted.

Consequently, the company has written the group managing director of UBA in a letter dated August 21, 2017, stating: “We received the attached notice of withdrawal of the case instituted against us and wish to assure you that we are not averse to amicable resolution to this problem as long as the parties will allow justice and fairness to prevail.

“Consequently, kindly credit our account with the sum of N97, 044, 431.54 (Ninety seven million and forty four thousand, four hundred and thirty one naira, fifty four kobo only) being the credit balance due on our account as 31/7/2017 as calculated… and issue a bank draft/cheque for the sum and our statement of accounts.”

Uzoka

The letter, which was signed by Esimone, president of Lloyds Energy Limited, and copied to the secretary, Bankers’ Committee, Sub-Committee on Ethics and professionalism, was received by the UBA Plc mail room on August 24, 2017, by 11:59 am.

Lloyds Energy Limited has also in another letter to the secretary to the Sub-Committee on Ethics and Professionalism, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, CIBN, informed him of the UBA’s voluntary withdrawal of the case the bank instituted against Lloyds Energy Limited.

The letter urged the secretary to recall the Llodys Energy request to transfer its “portion of the recommended refund of N193,973,799.09 (residual on our account and attendant interests charges based on Treasury Bill Rates plus the penal Charges) to our nominated account was turned down on the basis of subsisting UBA Plc Suit No;FHC/L/CS/886/2014 in Federal High Court. The bank has consistently referred to this suit as their basis for not refunding our balance to us, always relying on your caveat in your letter dated October 19, 2015: “It was also ratified at the Bankers Committee meeting that the above sum (193, 973,799.09) should be credited into the petitioners’s account to reduce its indebetedness pending resolution of the case in court”.

The letter which was signed by Esimone stated: “It is pertinent to note that all the nine ‘errors’ on our account, amounting to N123,864,473.30 occurred before the purported loan debit of N120,247,825.80, on which the bank alleged indebtedness was based.

Lloyds Energy appealed to the sub-committee to prevail on UBA PLc. which had on its own ended the court case, to pay the company through a bank draft or cheque, the updated sum of  N97,044,541,54 due to it computed on the basis established by the bankers’ sub-committee in its letter and for UBA to issue the company its final statement of account.

The letter was copied to the group managing director of UBA Plc.  

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Phillips Uzoda

Realnews made several efforts through telephone calls and text messages to Nasir Ramon, spokesman of UBA, to react on the development but he failed to pick his calls or respond to the text message. However, in his previous reaction in our initial story, Ramon admitted that Lloyds Energy Limited is a customer of the bank and that there was an infraction on its account with the UBA. According to him, “the company petitioned the Bankers Committee (Sub-committee on Ethics & Professionalism) on alleged excess charges on its accounts and demanded for refund of N502.07million from the bank.

“The complaints were investigated and discussions were held with the customer (and his consultants), but due to inability of all the parties to reach a consensus, the Sub-Committee stepped in and mediated on the case. After their review, the Sub-Committee ruled that the bank should refund the total sum of N193.97Million to the customer’s account. This amount comprised of total excess charges of N121.6Million plus penal interest ofN72.37Million.

“The total refund of N193.97Million has been credited to the customer’s account” he said, adding that: “Part of the sub-committee ruling was that the recommended refund should be credited into the Petitioner’s account to reduce its indebtedness pending the resolution of the case in court. Hence the total refund ofN193.97Million was credited to the customer’s account with UBA.

“Since the account was in debit, the fund was used to reduce the company’s liability to the bank, hence the reason the refund was not made available to the customer as he has alleged. No money was diverted by the bank as alleged,” Ramon said.

He said further that: “The customer later approached the Bankers’ committee that the refund should be backdated to Jan 2012 when the infraction occurred. With the backdating, the customer would not have requested for a certain loan of N121million that created the debit in the account in the first place. The request was turned down as the committee ruled that penal interest had been awarded to the customer, which was to compensate for loss attributable to the overcharge by the bank.”

Besides, he said that UBA sued the customer for recovery of the outstanding balance in the account. “This case is still in court. He was never threatened by the bank using the court or EFCC as alleged by you.”

However, a source close to Lloyds Energy Limited, who wishes anonymity, told Realnews that the UBA’s discontinuance with the case is a welcome development in so far as it is a step towards resolution of this long-standing case between the bank and her customer for more than four years. “This is long overdue since UBA participated in the administrative process by CIBN on the same matter.”

The CIBN petition resolution procedure/guideline requires that matters before it should not be taken to court before their conclusion but UBA flaunted the rule. “It is important to note that UBA had on February 21, 2014, issued a similar notice of discontinuance on the directive of CIBN only to rush back to court and re-enlisted the matter, ostensibly to forestall CIBN ruling on the petition of unethical and unprofessional conduct of the bank brought to it by the customer.

Realnews reports that the UBA was indicted by the Bankers’ Committee to have unethically deducted the customers money systematically through series of supposedly nine entry ‘errors,’ or deliberate manipulations, to the tune of N123million and was penalised to the tune of N73million using conservative treasury bill rates of between 5-15 percent as against customer’s expectation of complete reversal of the debit and associated interest that was based on commercial and punitive rates running at over 27.5 percent.

However, “With this notice, the customer expects the bank to forward the residual on her account and associated penal charges amounting to N97million as at July 30, 2017, and as well as take steps to close this very ugly situation and restore the customers business which they bank has disrupted grievously,” the source said.

On its part, Bankers Committee has a professional duty to see to the full resolution of the case that bother on professionalism now the UBA has voluntarily withdrawn the suit. Only then can justive be said to have been done to Lloyds Energy whose business had been ruined due to the nefarious act of the bank.

–   Sept. 8, 2017 @ 08:22 GMT |

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