FBN Holdings’ AGM: Shareholder Urges Court To Set Aside Interim Order

An aggrieved shareholder of FBN Holdings has asked a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos to set aside the court’s interim order directing the Holden Company not to go ahead with its annual general meeting held on the 15th of August.

The request to set aside the order granted by Justice Nicholas Oweibo, on the 29th of July is contained in an application filed and moved by Barrister Kazeem A. Gbadamosi, (SAN) counsel to Mr. Sunday Aborisade, asking the court to join him as parties in the suit.

When the matter came up for hearing yesterday, the applicant told Justice Akintoye 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 lay bare before it. 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 cannot be stopped from holding”, he said.

Meanwhile, Justice Aluko had earlier refused an application by FBN to stay proceedings in the matter.

Justice Aluko, in the ruling, said the applicant by FBN did not challenge the jurisdiction of the court in its Notice of Appeal.

The court held that filing a Notice of Appeal is not an automatic ground for a stay of proceedings.

The aggrieved shareholders/applicants in the suit marked FHC/L/CP/1575/23 are Olojede Adewole Solomon, Adebayo Oluwafemi Abayomi, and Ogundiran Emmanuel Adejare.

Meanwhile First Bank of Nigeria Holdings Plc has urged the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal to stay and suspend the execution of the order of a Federal High Court stopping the bank’s Annual General Meeting (AGM).

The bank is also asking the Appeal Court to order proceedings in this suit before the lower court pending the hearing and determination of the appeal against the Ruling of this Honourable Court delivered on the 9th of August, 2023.