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| Aribisala |
Hon. Justice Tsoho
sitting at the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court on Friday June 1, 2012
struck out the winding up petition filed by Chief Ajibola Aribisala, SAN, of
AOS Practice against Access Bank over alleged inability to pay a N2.264 billion
debt on the ground of incompetence and abuse of court process. The Court also
awarded cost in the sum of N300, 000.00 (Three Hundred Thousand Naira) against
Chief Ajibola Aribisala.
In his ruling,
Hon. Justice Tsoho stated that the debt forming the basis of the petition is
disputed and as such the dispute must be first resolved before a court can have
jurisdiction to adjudicate over same.
The Learned Justice ruled that Chief Ajibola's petition brought before
the Court was incompetent and constitutes an abuse of court process, stressing
that the Bank has a legal right not to be unduly interfered with except in a
manner allowed by law and therefore to advertise the petition which is founded
on a disputed debt amounts to an undue interference with the Bank's right.
He added that the
Court has an inherent jurisdiction to determine the competence of the petition
commenced against the Bank and have the responsibility to prevent the abuse of
its process by terminating the proceedings where petition presented constitutes
an abuse as in this case with the winding-up petition filed against Access Bank
by Chief Ajibola Aribisala.
It would be
recalled that Aribisala had, in the petition filed before Justice John Tsoho of
a Federal High Court in Lagos, alleged that he was owed the sum of N2,
264,716,007.98, as fees for various legal services he had rendered to the Bank.
In the petition,
Aribisala averred that he was instructed at different times by Access Bank to
recover various debts, running into billions of Naira , owed the bank by Zenon
Petroleum and Gas Limited and Bi-Courtney Limited, alleging that the Bank also
agreed to pay him 10 per cent of the recovered sum.
Aribisala further
alleged that after he had taken various steps to recover the debt, Access Bank
sold Zenon's loan assets to the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria
(AMCON) for N13.5 billion, in defiance of an earlier agreement he had with the
Bank. However, during the last proceedings, Access Bank faulted the claims,
stressing that it did not at any time agree to pay the petitioner 10 per cent
of any amount recovered.
The Bank, speaking
through its counsel, Babatunde Fagbohun (SAN) of Aluko and Oyebode, disclosed
that in the letter of instruction given to Aribisala by the Bank, the mandate
given to him to recover the debt was not exclusive. According to Access Bank,
it was never in the agreement that it could not resort to other means to
recover its money.
Contrary to
Aribisala's allegation that ddZenon's loan was sold for N13.5 billion, Access
Bank said AMCON only issued bond for the loan, which was, in itself, an
instrument of debt. The Bank, while describing the bond as a promise to pay at
a later date, added that it was not true that AMCON had paid for the loan.
The Bank said
apart from the fact that Aribisala had been paid N173 million, the amount being
claimed by him was in dispute, adding that this had robbed the Federal High
Court of any jurisdiction in the matter.
The Bank sought a
stay of proceedings on the ground that the alleged indebtedness was being
disputed on substantial ground, adding that the court was not the proper forum
for the matter to be heard.
Aribisala,
however, through his lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, had filed a preliminary objection
to the Bank's motion and urged the court to dismiss it and proceed with the
matter. However, the Court refused Chief
Aribisala's preliminary objection and struck out the petition for being
incompetent and constituting an abuse of the court process.
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