The accounts of two companies, Africa Plus Partners Nigeria Limited and Bastanchury Power Solutions Nigeria Limited in 22 Nigerian banks have been frozen over alleged violations of the Companies & Allied Matters Act (CAMA).
Justice Peter Lifu of the federal high court sitting in Lagos placed a Post-No-Debit Order on the accounts of the two firms, a consequence of an ex parte motion filed by Adetunji Adedoyin counsel to the companies’ shareholders, over violations of CAMA and the way the company is being handled.
The banks affected by the orders are Citi Bank Nigeria Ltd, Ecobank Nigeria Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Ltd, First City Monument Bank Plc, Globus Bank, Heritage Bank Ltd, Jaiz Bank, Keystone Bank Ltd, Polaris Bank, Providus Bank.
Others are: Stanbic IBTC Bank Nigeria Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Access Bank Plc; Sterling Bank Plc, Suntrust Bank Ltd, and Union Bank of Nig. Plc, United bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Unity Bank Plc, Wema Bank Plc, and Zenith Bank Plc.
In particular, Justice Lifu accorded a Mareva Injunction, preventing the banks from issuing or going to deal in any way with any of the funds or assets owed to the two defendants in any accounts maintained by them, their agents, privies, subsidiaries, or servants, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.
Since the powers of the signatories to any of the affected accounts in the said banks are at the moment suspended pending the hearing and determination of the motion on Notice, the judge restrained the defendants, their directors, agents or privies, and sister companies from transferring or dealing with any of the monies or properties standing to the credit of the defendants in any of the affected banks.
The affected banks were mandated to file and serve on the claimant’s counsel within seven days of receiving the order an Affidavit revealing the account balance of the defendants’ accounts as of the date of receipt of the order. Thus, the hearing of the motion on notice was adjourned to March 20, 2023.
The plaintiffs, Frenchurch Energy Nigeria Limited, Funso Adeyemi and Femi Bakre of FENL, urged the court for an order directing a forensic assessment by one of the big four accounting companies to scrutinize and observe the records of the firm and for an obligatory Annual General Meeting and Board Meeting to be held by the members and Directors of Bastanchury Power Solutions Nigeria Limited in acquiescence with the requirements of the Company and Allied Matters Act, 2020 (As Amended), in about seven days from the date the Order of Court was made.
They are also requesting that the court designate an independent and external auditor to evaluate the first and second Defendants’ accounting books and operations on the premises that the second Defendant has purportedly arbitrarily misappropriated and utilized the funds of the first Defendant, namely Africa Infra Plus Fund (AIPF), to the alienation of the first Plaintiff, who is a major shareholder in the first Defendant, as well as the second and third Plaintiff who till the time of filing this report, remains as the director of the first defendant.
Until the final audit report of the accounting books and operations of the first Defendant is submitted to the Deputy Chief Registrar of the court, the claimants are in quest of a Long-lasting order restricting the defendants from selling, charging, mortgaging of the assets, shares, funds or any of the first Defendant’s properties on behalf of the first Defendant’s Firm, which includes landed properties belonging to Bastanchury Power Solutions Nigeria Limited.
They are also pursuing an order persuading FBNQuest Trustees Limited and Stanbic IBTC Trustee Limited to reveal all monies pertaining to the first and second Defendants in their possession, as well as funds about the first and second Defendants, in order to figure out the funds due to the Complainants in this suit.
In an affidavit filed in support of the Originating Summons, which was deposed to by the Plaintiffs, they averred that they filed the suit to enforce their rights as shareholders of Bastanchury Power Solutions Nigeria Limited since the Board of Directors of the company had failed to act.
The Petitioners also noted that they required the Court to utilize its prerogatives under the Companies and Allied Matters Act to probe the first Defendant’s proceedings to guarantee that excellent and proper corporate governance is entrenched, given that if the Court does not cooperate, the first Defendant, under the complete power of the second Defendant, may have dispersed the Plaintiffs’ assets jointly owned into its funds; Africa Infra Plus Fund (AIPF), a fund they do not influence They also claimed that, while single-handedly managing the affairs of the first Defendant to their exclusion, the second Defendant may have allegedly transferred funds belonging to the first Defendant into its funds, Africa Infra Plus Fund (AIPF), of which they are unaware.