Fakoyejo OlalekanAfter trying to gain access to one of Stallion Nigeria Limited’s properties in Victoria Island, Lagos, the Federal High Court has ruled that Guaranty Trust (GT) Bank violated court judgements.
Two weeks ago, GTBank took possession of Stallion’s assets through its appointed receiver/manager, Temilolu Adamolekun, due to a N13 billion judgement debt.
GTBank acted on an ex-parte order by Justice Saliu Saidu on 2 December 2019 following a lawsuit (FHC/L/CS/2/47/2019) filed against Stallion Nigeria Limited before filed by the lender against Stallion before the Federal High Court in Lagos.
The creditor took possession of vehicles such as Porsche, Audi, Bentley, Volkswagen, Skoda, Hyundai, and Hyundai among others in form of its judgement debt.
However, Justice Allagoa of the federal high court on Monday, 20 February 2023, ruled that GTBank contravened a court ruling, considering the order by Saidu had been set aside on 24 February 2022 by Court of Appeal Justices; Daniel-Kalio, Sirajo and Banjoko.
They ruled in favour of Stallion, which had argued that it doesn’t owe GTBank, rather, overpaid the lender by N6,423,700,000 for its outstanding debt.
Stallion said GTBank is aware of this, and also the financial institution accepted the finding of a forensic audit done by auditors at KPMG, which disclosed that GTBank overcharged Stallion N4,693,625,637.49.
According to Justice Allagoa, the timeframe of the order by Justice Saidu has elapsed, and actions taken by GTBank on the basis of the ruling are a violation of the Appeal Court ruling.
Alagoa said GTBank tried to undermine the court proceedings by forcefully taking possession of Stallion assets, as the timeline for the completion of the forensic audit pursuant to the consent judgment hasn’t been determined by the court.
The judge described GTBank’s action as wrong, further stating that “any and every step taken by Guaranty Trust Bank Plc before, on or after 1 February 2023 in purported execution of the Consent Judgment of the Court dated 17 December 2019, in the light of the Judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered on 24 February 2022 in favour of Stallion Nigeria,” has been set aside.
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