Innoson heads to Supreme Court as Appeal Court grants GTBank's new application

Innocent Chukwuma, the owner of Innoson, has asked his lawyers to appeal the recent reliefs granted GTBank by the Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal, allowing the bank to amend its notice of appeal.

The order was granted on July 13 following arguments by GTBank’s lead lawyer, Wole Olanipekun.

Mr Olanipekun sought a leave to amend the notice of appeal previously entered by GTBank in the alleged arbitrary deduction case brought by Mr Chukwuma.

Mr Chukwuma’s lawyer, McCarthy Mbadugha, argued against the application, saying the court should instead ask GTBank to comply with a 2014 order which asked it to deposit nearly N6 billion in an interest-yielding account with Nigeria’s commercial banks.

The account was to be opened and monitored by the deputy registrar of the Court of Appeal in charge of Enugu Division. Innoson argued that based on its calculation of a 22 per cent lending rate, the N6 billion order in December 2014 had crossed N14 billion as at June 2018.

GTBank previously appealed the Court of Appeal order that it should pay the amount into the court-monitored account until the substantive matter had been decided. But the Supreme Court returned the case to the Court of Appeal in an unclear circumstances last month.

Innoson argued that the case was struck out and that would mean the Court of Appeal order against GTBank should be activated, but GTBank argued that the Supreme Court’s decision on its interlocutory injunction did not mean it must comply with the order to pay the money into a court’s account.

Mr Mbadugha argued that GTBank’s action amounted to a contempt of court and that the same Court of Appeal that GTBank had allegedly disregarded should not grant the bank any reliefs until the previous order had been complied with.

Innoson’s lawyers further argued that since details of the Court of Appeal 2014 order had been transmitted to the Supreme Court following GTBank’s appeal thereof, then the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to entertain the same matter, citing Order 8 Rule 11 of the Supreme Court 1985 (as amended).