Justice Daniel Osiagor of the Federal High Court in Lagos has vacated a ‘No Debit Order’ placed on the the bank accounts belonging to an oil company, Petralon 54 Limited and its parent company, Petralon Energy Limited.
Justice Osiagor lifted the freezing order after hold that the plaintiff in the suit Eurafric Energy misled the court by deliberately suppressing material facts in its application.
The judge discharged the order while ruling on a motion filed by Petralon Energy Limited and Petralon 54 Limited, praying the Court to unfreeze the frozen accounts.
Petralon 54 Limited had in an affidavit filed in response to Eurafric’s Counter affidavit claimed that the plaintiff had grossly misinformed the court and caused the institution of justice to act in error.
Eurafric Energy had approached the court, praying it to bar operations and transactions on the bank accounts belonging to Petralon 54 its parent company, Petralon Energy, and an unrelated company Tako E&P Solution, on the ground that the three oil companies did not declare the total quantity of crude sold, the amount it was sold and the royalty paid to the government in a federal government Agency transaction.
Justice Osiagor in his consolidated judgment ruled that Exhibit Volte Face F exhibited in the Plaintiff’s Counter Affidavit and Exhibit G exhibited in the Defendant’s Counter indicated that the Plaintiff (Eurafric Energy) gave consent for a loan of $2.2 million, to be obtained thereby making it a party to the debt repayment efforts to the holding bank which the funds it sought to freeze pertained to.
The court further held that this fact was not disclosed to the court before the restraining Order on the Defendant’s accounts.
The judge, therefore, held that upon consideration of Petralon 54’s Affidavit in response to Eurafric’s Counter Affidavit deposed to on October 12, 2022, and the Reply Address in support of the Motion to Set Aside the Ex parte Orders, Eurafric had grossly misinformed the court and caused the institution of justice to act in error.
The banks affected by the order of court are Access Bank Plc, Ecobank Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Plc; First City Monument Bank Plc; Guaranty Trust Bank Plc; Jaiz Bank Plc; Keystone Bank Plc; Polaris Bank Plc, Stanbic Ibtc Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc; Globus Bank Plc; Titan Bank Plc; Providus Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, Standard Chartered Bank Plc; Sterling Bank Plc; Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc.
Findings revealed that until June 28, 2022, when Petralon 54 became the sole operator of the Dawes Island Field having been granted Petroleum Prospecting License No. 259 (PPL 259) by the Federal Government of Nigeria by the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021, the plaintiff (Eurafric Energy), Petralon 54, and Tako E&P Solutions were joint venture (JV) partners.
The JV arrangement covered operation at the Dawes Island Marginal Field initially awarded to the Plaintiff (Eurafric Energy), which was revoked on the grounds of operational ineptitude, poor management and asset abandonment for more than fourteen years, resulting in loss of revenue to the Federal Government of Nigeria and being inimical / adversely impacting the development of Okrika communities, River State, where the asset is situated.
Earlier in the transaction, the JV had secured a loan of $2.2 million from Access Bank for operational activities, with a crude sale proceeds domiciliation agreement with the Bank to offset the JV’s indebtedness. In its alleged misleading presentations to the Court, Eurafric Energy was accused of concealing the knowledge of the loan, which exhibit Volte Face F in its Counter Affidavit and Defendant’s exhibit ‘G’ in its Counter process, proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Reviewing the process, industry and legal analyst, Ibrahim Ajila asserted that “Eurafric Energy hoodwinked the Court into granting an ex-parte Mareva, this is indeed a highly reprehensible conduct that could bring the judiciary into disrepute, cause significant economic losses and reputational damage, not only to the defendant, but to the financial institutions involved in the transaction, because conscious denial of continuing indebtedness to a bank, just to procure a restraining Order, could injure our financial system and put depositors funds in jeopardy as a result of none repayment, or servicing of the loan.
“This is an abuse of our judicial process, a premeditated malicious and gross intent to destroy the operations and reputation of another corporate entity through the propagation of falsehood, which is designed to pitch the entity against investors, and impair its capacity to continue to receive funding from international capital sources.
“With our prevailing economic situation, any action – either by an individual or corporate entity, that will impact FDI inflows to Nigeria or cast Nigeria in a bad light is beyond economic sabotage.
“Such qualifies as economic terrorism, and using the instrument of the state – the country’s judicial system to execute this type of scandalous and atrocious deed, should not go unpunished”, he concluded.
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