Justice Akintayo Aluko of the Federal High Court, Lagos has granted an interim order of Mareva injunction restraining Duport Midstream Company Limited, Platform Capital Investment Partners Limited and their Managing Director, Akintoye Akindele, from accessing N1,379,400,918 or its equivalent in any currency in 24 banks pending the determination of a motion on notice filed by Union Bank.
The judge made the order following an application by the financial institution through its counsel, Temilolu Adamolekun, in the suit marked FHC/L/CS/1709/2023.
The banks, which are the 4th to 27th respondents in the case, include Access; Citibank; Ecobank; Fidelity; First Bank; First City Monument Bank; Guaranty Trust Bank; Globus; Heritage; Jaiz; Keystone; Lotus; Parallex; Polaris and Providus.
The rest are: Stanbic IBTC; Standard Chartered; Sterling; Suntrust; Titan Trust; United Bank of Nigeria; Unity; Wema and Zenith.
The applicant alleged that the 1st to 3rd defendants were indebted to it to the tune of N1,379,400,918 as of June 30, 2023, “while interest continues to accrue under the terms of the various facilities granted by the applicant to the 1st defendant for several purposes as captured on the various offer letters.”
After granting the ex parte application motion, Justice Aluko further restrained the banks from releasing to the defendants any fund or instrument belonging to the defendants, to the tune of N1.3 billion or its equivalent in any foreign currency that may be or found in their custody.
The court also granted an order directing the banks “to disclose on oath whatever sum of money that may be in their custody, (and) belonging to the defendants” for further direction.
The case was, subsequently, adjourned to September 13 for hearing of the motion on notice.
