Supreme Court has struck out an appeal by Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) against Suru Worldwide Ventures Nigeria Limited and its Managing Director, Mr. Edward Akinlade, over a disputed debt claim of N24.6 billion.
The court ruled the appeal: SC/CV/865/2021, was incompetent, and therefore struck it out.
The ruling was delivered by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, with Justices Ibrahim Musa Saulawa, Emmanuel Akomaye Agim, Chidiebere Nwaoma Uwa, and Abubakar Sadiq Umar, concurring.
“This notice of appeal, having been withdrawn for being incompetent, is struck out,” Justice Abba-Aji declared.
The legal tussle arose from a dispute between Suru Worldwide Ventures and Oceanic Bank Plc (Ecobank Plc), over what Suru alleged to be gross mismanagement of its account.
In 2011, Suru initiated Suit FHC/L/CS/450/2011 at Federal High Court against Ecobank and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), citing inconsistent and unexplainable debt restructuring and alleged “creative accounting.”
Suru contended that its account, which was in credit, was manipulated, and that the alleged debt initially restructured to N8.3 billion in 2012 inexplicably ballooned to over N24.6 billion by 2013, despite no new facility being granted.
CBN was later struck out as a party in the suit.
AMCON entered the fray in 2016, claiming to have purchased the disputed debt from Ecobank and was joined as a co-defendant.
Just two days after being joined, AMCON filed a counterclaim seeking to recover the N24.2 billion from Suru and Akinlade.
However, the Federal High Court and Court of Appeal ruled against AMCON.
The trial court found the counterclaim to be an abuse of court process, citing multiple suits by AMCON on the same subject matter and failure to obtain declaratory reliefs in an earlier case effectively extinguishing AMCON’s right to sue on the matter.
