A multinational company, Ravih Abdul and Co., Limited has dragged an old generation bank before a Lagos High court, Ikeja over alleged debt of N119, 773, 826.

Joined as second applicant in the suit Mr. Adekunle Abdul, who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the firm.

The claimants in the suit marked ADR/2520/2023 are praying the court to compel Union Bank to pay them N119, 773, 826 “being the total accumulated indebtedness from the defendant to the claimants from November 1994 to December 2022.”

The claimants in their statement of claim said the bank allegedly received 5, 240 pounds sterling as payment of required fees to process Letter of Credit for them, but refused to use the money for that purpose.

The second claimant said: “Although the defendant had claimed paying the money on the Letter of Credit, it had failed to make available to the claimants all the accrued interests generated on the money between November 1993 when the Letter of Credit expired and September 1994, the period they kept the money in their account without payment to the beneficiary, which had amounted to 1, 008.77 pounds sterling that should have accrued to the claimants in their account.

“The defendant has refused till date to explain what it did with the interests that were accumulated on the money they paid to the defendant after a long period that the money was lodged with them when they did not pay the money within three months specified in the Letter of Credit after revalidation, and the money was not used for the purpose it was intended.

“The claimants aver that pursuant to the above, they had earlier forwarded letters of demand to the defendant for the payment of the accumulated outstanding due to them and copies of the letters dated September 2022, November 4, 2022 and January 11, 2023 respectively.

“That the defendant had not denied receiving the sum of 5, 240.26 pounds sterling as payment of the required fees for the processing of Letters of Credit in their favour, moreso, it had not denied delaying the payment to the beneficiary until 1994.”

The claimants prays the court to order the defendant to either pay them “the sum of 220, 838.74 pounds sterling or N119, 773, 826, being total accumulated indebtedness from the defendant to the claimants from arrears of accumulated interests on the claimants’ account with the defendant from November 1994 to December 2022.”
The case is yet to be assigned to a judge.