Innoson claims it has won N8 billion judgment debt against GT Bank (Explained)

The case between GT Bank and Innoson Motors took another turn
yesterday after the local car manufacturer sent out a tweet with
the heading “Innoson Takes over GTB over N8.7 Billion Judgment
debt; as Supreme Court Dismiss GTB’s Appeal”

In a series of tweets published by the company, it claimed it
“through a Writ of FiFa taken over Guaranty Trust Bank PLC for and
on behalf of Innoson Nigeria Ltd as a result of the Bank’s
indebtedness to Innoson Nigeria Ltd.”. It also claimed this was
based on “a landmark decision” on February 27th, 2019, where “the
Supreme Court of Nigeria dismissed GTB’s appeal – SC. 694/2014-
against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Ibadan Division.”

See thread below;

Press Release

Breaking: Innoson Takes over GTB over N8.7 Billion Judgment
debt; as Supreme Court Dismiss GTB’s Appeal

The Chairman of Innoson Group, Chief Dr Innocent Chukwuma, OFR
has through a Writ of FiFa taken over Guaranty Trust Bank PLC for
and on behalf pic.twitter.com/lZ2dHXLFbB^[1]

— Innoson Vehicles (@innosonvehicles) March
29, 2019^[2]

Innosons’ claim against GT Bank

We won it court – The company claims that
GT Bank lost a Supreme Court appeal for it to rescind the lower
court’s decision for it to pay back Innoson N2.8 billion plus
interest at 22% per annum in “illegal charges” against the car
maker. Thus, since GT Bank lost as it claimed, it further went
ahead to obtain a Writ of FiFa (an abbreviation for Writ
of Fieri Facias) granting it authority to take over any GT Bank
branch that is worth the N2.8 billion plus the interest it claims
the bank owes.

What is a Writ of Fieri – Basically this
is a court document used by the successful plaintiff to enforce the
judgment of a court by taking a lien on a property of the defendant
that it believes is worth more than the amount being owed.

Does it mean Innoson has taken over GT Bank as its tweet
depicts – The headline was purely sensational and in
no way means it has taken over GT Bank. Rather, if the judgment was
consistent with Innoson’s claim that it won, it will either have to
sell a GT Bank property to recover its claims or get a direct
payment t from the bank.

How much is involved – According to
Innoson its claim is about “The Judgment debt of N2.4B has an
accrued interest as at today of about N6,717,909,849.96 which
results in about N8.8 Billion.” The accrued interest is this much
because it is calculated from when Innnoson first obtained
favourable judgment. And since GT Bank kept appealing, the
interest kept piling up.  So if true, GT Bank is on the hook
to pay almost N9 billion in damages.

Will this hurt GT bank – GT Bank is one of
the biggest banks in Nigeria with a shareholder’s fund of over N575
billion. It surely has enough cash to pay and may have even
provided for this judgment debt if it loses. Whether they will pay
or allow this to drag is unclear. GT Bank is yet to respond as at
the time of publishing this article.

Culled from nairametrics.com