The Lagos Division of the Federal High Court has affirmed UBA’s efforts to recover a disputed N156.03 billion debt from Stallion Group and Vaswani Brothers.
Justice Daniel Osiagor delivered the ruling on Friday, upholding UBA’s right to take possession of the defendants’ mortgaged properties and handing victory to the bank after nearly three years of legal battles.
The battle dates back to October 2023, when Justice Akintayo Aluko ordered Nigerian banks to freeze the accounts of Stallion Nigeria Ltd., Von Automobile Nigeria, Stallion Motors, The Honda Place and director Sunil Vaswani.
Mr Aluko further directed UBA to take over the assets of Stallion Nigeria Ltd. and its affiliated companies in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano. The defendants asked the court to reverse the order, but the court declined, leading to a protracted legal battle that came to a head on Friday.
Stallion Group and Vaswani Brothers had challenged the appointment of a receiver-manager to take possession of their mortgaged properties over their alleged refusal to repay the disputed debt.
However, the judge, on Friday, affirmed Romeo Ese Michael as the bank’s receiver-manager and authorised him to enforce the debt security.
Mr Osiagor dismissed the defendants’ argument that their debt was not up to N156.03 billion, stating that a dispute over the amount owed did not negate the existence of the indebtedness and, consequently, had no bearing on his ruling.
He said the same debt recovery rules still applied as long as a debt existed, even if its reconciliation was being contested.
The court also barred the defendants from diverting receivables owed to them by government agencies into other accounts.