The case brought by a number of First Bank shareholders who were not satisfied with the company’s actions against FBN Holdings has been postponed till September 5th by the Federal High Court Sitting in Lagos.
After hearing the arguments from the parties involved, Justice Akintayo Aluko set the date.
In one of the ongoing cases, Mr. Sunday Aborisade, a disgruntled FBN Holdings shareholder, petitioned the court to overturn an interim injunction issued on July 29th instructing the company not to hold its annual general meeting (AGM) on August 15.
The application to set aside the order granted by Justice Nicholas Oweibo is contained in an application filed and moved by his lawyer, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Kazeem Gbadamosi.
Mr Aborishade is also seeking to be joined as a party in the suit.
When the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, the applicant told Justice Aluko that the interim order was fraudulently obtained by suppression of facts which, if brought to the notice of the court, would have persuaded the court not to grant it.
“My Lord, the order ought not to have been made if the facts are laid bare before the court. I urge my Lord to set it aside. Apart from setting aside the order, I also urge the court to join me as a party, as the order affected me.
“Assuming the meeting was not held virtually, I would not have received my dividends. The AGM is like a market which can not be stopped from holding”, he said.
In an earlier ruling on another application, Justice Aluko refused a move by FBN Holdings to stay proceedings in the matter.
Justice Aluko, in the ruling, said the application by FBN did not challenge the jurisdiction of the court in its Notice of Appeal.
The court also held that filing a Notice of Appeal is not an automatic ground for a stay of proceedings.
Meanwhile, FBN Holdings Plc through its counsel, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mutalubi Ojo Adebayo, has filed another application before the court seeking a stay of the proceedings before the court.
Counsel to the aggrieved shareholders, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Muiz Banire, told the court that the application was not ripe for hearing. He also sought to draw the court’s attention to what he called the flagrant disobedience to the court’s interim order.
Justice Aluko noted that there were pending applications before the court which were not ripe for hearing. He adjourned till after the Annual General Conference of the NBA to enable all parties to file necessary responses to the pending applications.