Financial Institution, Ecobank is
swimming in allegations of defrauding it’s customer via surreptitious
deductions.
Here are the details
Ecobank
Plc is in the news again. Just like always, the Bank is allegedly entangled in
a fraud case with a limited liability company known as N.C Gibson International
Limited that claims to have lost a whopping sum of N6, 572,541.12 million as a
result of spurious and illegal charges on an account domicile with the Bank.
Ecobank
is known to be one of the leading banks in the country but what is coming out
of the bank in recent times is not encouraging.
In an
affidavit sworn to by N.C Gibson International Limited in the Federal High
Court, Lagos in the suit number Fitch/L/CS/1303/2012, the Lagos based company
claimed that Ecobank has been increasing the interest charged on loan collected
from the Bank.
N.C
Gibson is a major distributor of recharge cards, sim cards, e-pins and other
products to reputable telecommunication companies in Nigeria. It was gathered
in 2011, the company secured a contract as major distributor of Airtel, hence
in a bid to facilitate its business and also to ensure that it regularly meets
its sales target, applied for a grant of credit facilities to finance the
purchase of recharge cards, sim cards and e-pins from Airtel and Visafone.
To this
end, Ecobank was said to accept the credit application and the terms and
conditions were duly assented by Gibson International Limited. It was gathered
that the Credit Facilities Agreement stipulated a tenor of 365 days that the
maximum amount available to the Gibson at any time shall not exceed N100
million and the facilities that attract and interest rate of 16 % per annum
well as processing & management of 2.5 percent each payable upon acceptance
of this facility and the commission on turnover of 0.25 kobo per mille with N
200m monthly turnover.
However,
after the completion and signing of the credit facility, Gibson claimed that
Ecobank placed an embargo on stock of recharge cards that initial stock to be
released shall not exceed N33, 600,000 being 60% of the stipulated N56,000,000
faced sale value.
Consequently,
Gibson claimed that both employees of the company and representative of Ecobank
went to Airtel Office to purchase stock worth N 100 million on behalf Gibson International
Limited, of which Ecobank carted the entire stock to its office and later
released N 33,600,000 worth of stock to Gibson.
But the
smooth transaction started to hit brick wall few months later when, according
to the company, Ecobank suddenly and unilaterally stopped releasing more stocks
to the company stating that the initial N33, 600,000 worth of stock must be
paid for in full before any other stock would be released.
Prior to
this, the company claimed that many of its customers had already paid money
into its account (0260010129662502) and were awaiting supplies from the
company. After wards it become impossible for the company to release the goods
or refund their fee as the bank was alleged to prevent the company from
withstanding from the account domicile with it.
In
addition, the company claimed that when it required that when it requested bank
statement of its account, it observed that there were numerous irregular bank
charges the imposed and collected by the
bank which is contrary to the clear terms of the clear terms of the relevant
credit facilities agreement
Hence,
the company engaged the service of forensic consulting firm to reconcile the
bank charges in Account No. (0260010129662502) with view of discovering the
extent of illegal changes on the accounts. It was learnt an illegal charges of
N6, 572,541 million which contradict section 3.2.4(g) of the CBN Monetary,
Credit, and Foreign Trade& Exchange Policy Guidelines for Fiscal 2010/2011.
Moreover,
by virtue of the breach of the CBN circular, the company claimed that it is
entitled to N1, 356,340,000. 74 trillion as well as apology letter to the
company within two weeks.
This, we
gathered didn’t go well with Ecobank and declined several letters written by
the consulting firm to summon the bank.
Instead,
Ecobank was demanding a full offset of the entire loan fee despite the fact
that over N40 million worth of goods is still within the banks disposal.
Meanwhile,
the company has requested an order of the court to compel Ecobank to release the
remaining stock of goods, as well as direct Ecobank to pay penalty of 100% of
amount involved in the commission on turnover rate.
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