According to a report on Leadership news paper, some aggrieved shareholders of the defunct Bank PHB Plc has dragged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Asset Management Cooperation of Nigeria (AMCON) before the Federal High Court in Lagos over the alleged illegal transfer of their shares to Keystone Bank without compensation.
The shareholders, apart from urging the court to set aside the transfer, are also demanding the sum of N38.6 billion from the defendants as “fair compensation” to them for the value of their investment in Bank PHB Plc.
The plaintiffs, who also want the court to set aside the alleged unlawful nationalisation, compulsory acquisition and expropriation of their investments in Bank PHB, are further demanding the sum of N20 billion as damages for the loss of value of their investments in the bank.
Apart from the CBN and AMCON, others joined in the suit filed by nine shareholders on behalf of others whose names were on the register of members as at October 2, 2009, are Keystone Bank, the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC).The plaintiffs are also praying the court to declare that the action amounted to unlawful compulsory acquisition of their investment, and is, therefore, unconstitutional, arbitrary, null and void. They also want the court to hold that the purported nationalisation of their investments without being paid compensation is unlawful and contravenes Section 44 of the 1999 Constitution.
The shareholders, in a statement of claim attached to the suit, stated that the NDIC had on August 5, 2011, wrote to the managing director of Bank PHB informing him that the bank’s assets and liabilities has been transferred to Keystone Bank, and that the NDIC did so without any form of adequate compensation paid to the them.
However, the defendants had filed a preliminary objection to the suit, asking the court to strike it out for lack of jurisdiction.
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