AN
APPLICATION for injunction filed by owners of the defunct uniBank to prevent
Nii Amanor Dodoo, Receiver for Unibank, from taking over a property of the bank
at East Ridge, Accra, was on Friday dismissed by an Accra High Court.
The office
building located at East Ridge is currently occupied by Topp Core Security
Limited.
The receiver
is said to have served the occupants of the building a notice to vacate the
property. But the former owners of the bank challenged the decision and took
the issue to court praying that the receiver should be prevented from evicting
the tenants.
The court
presided by Eric K. Baffuor, however, ruled that the applicants did not
demonstrate sufficiently how the receiver’s decision to evict the occupant of
the property would affect the owners particularly since the tenant has not also
protested the eviction notice.
Mr. Dodoo has
since his appointment as receiver for the bank been working hard to retrieve
and preserve all assets of the defunct bank.
Mr. Dodoo’s pursuit of taking over properties of
the former bank as the receiver is supported by the Banks and Specialised
Deposit-Taking Act, 2016 (Act 930).
According to
Justice Baffuor, even though there was an ongoing arbitration on the revocation
of uniBank’s licence, the receiver was not party to that and could not be
prevented from performing his functions of preserving assets that legally
belonged to uniBank.
He stated
that in the event that the arbitration was successful, the asset would revert
to uniBank as the receiver was only acting on behalf of the former owners and
directors of uniBank adding that the bank would be the ultimate beneficiary.
The court
ruling on Friday is expected to empower Mr. Dodoo, who is also receiver for the
Construction Bank, The Royal Bank, Beige Bank and Sovereign Bank, to take over
properties belonging to these former universal banks.
