14th April, 2011
Tn a bid to recover a N860 million debt, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc has dragged Societa Generale Fondazioni Nigeria Limited before a Federal High Court, seeking an order to sell the company’s assets to liquidate the debt.
In an affidavit sworn to by an official of the bank, Mr. Soga Adewale, the deponent alleged that sometimes in September 2008, the bank granted Societa Generale Fondazioni a credit facility to facilitate execution of a dredging content in pursuance of which the bank issued an advanced payment guaranteed in the sum of N860 million as one of the conditions the company was required to fulfill under the said dredging contract granted to it by one ARM Company Limited.
It was further alleged that instead of executing the said dredging contract, the company diverted the advance payment sum elsewhere, hence the guarantee issued by the plaintiff was called in by ARM Company Limited and consequently, Guarantee Trust Bank had to pay the said sum, thereby putting the company’s facility account in debt position.
Consequent upon the failure of the company to repay the aforesaid sum and upon its application, the facility was restructured to a loan in October 2009. The said restructured term loan was secured among others, by a duly registered deed of all assets debenture over the company’s properties.
The Societa Generale Fondazioni Company drew down the credit facility and fully utilised the said facility granted by the bank, thereby breaching its repayment obligations under the loan contract and the deed of all assets debenture by its continuous failure, refusal and neglect to discharge its repayment obligation under the said loan contract.
As at 23 Agusut, 2010, the total indebtedness of the defendant to the bank stood at N972,527,804,96, being the principal sum and accrued interest on the loan facility as at the said date.
Part of the aforesaid advanced payment guarantee sum was utilised by the company to import the dredgers and their accessories presently at the Tin Can Island Port, Apapa, Lagos.
However, in order to exclude the dredgers and their accessories from the properties in the deed of debenture and thereby prevent the bank from realising its security, the company is presently contriving means to clear the said dredgers and their accessories from the port under another company’s name.
Apart from the dredgers, their accessories and other properties listed in the schedule of the deed of debenture, the company has no visible property from which the bank will realise its security and then urged the court, in the interest of justice, to grant the reliefs sought on its summons so as to prevent dissipation of the secured property, particularly the dredgers and their accessories, by the defendant.
Judgment was supposed to be delivered in this matter last Tuesday, but the presiding judge, Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako, adjourned till 12 May, to decide either the proposed amended originating summons should be accepted or not, since the company has raised an objection that they should not be allowed.
