UK court orders Akingbola to pay Access Bank N164 billion

A United Kingdom high court on Tuesday ordered Erastus Akingbola, former Chief Executive Officer of Intercontinental Bank, to repay approximately £654 million (N164 billion) to Access Bank after finding him guilty of practices while heading the bank.

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Justice Burton at The High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division Commercial Court, London found that Akingbola was liable to repay Access Bank the sums of N145 billion in respect of the Unlawful Share Purchase Scheme; N16 billion in respect of the Tropics Security Ltd Payments Claim; and £10.5 million in respect of the Fuglers Payments Claim.

This makes a grand total of N164 billion or £654 million. The case was between Access Bank as the claimant and Erastus Bankole Oladipo Akingbola as Defendant and other companies Kayman Company Limited, Verndale Properties Limited, Jasmine Properties Limited, Caelum Limited and Sanami Limited which Akingbola directly or indirectly has an interest in, as co-defendants but have no part in the proceedings.

The summary sheet indicated that The Claimant, formerly Intercontinental Bank plc (where separately referred to, “IB”), but since January 2012 as Access Bank plc, which merged with IB in 2011, sued Erastus Akingbola (“the Defendant”) for very substantial sums in these proceedings. Akingbola was the Group Chief Executive and a substantial shareholder in IB at all material times until 14 August 2009. He was also a director of two subsidiaries of IB, Intercontinental Capital Markets Limited (ICML) and Intercontinental Securities Ltd (ISL) and also a director and shareholder of the companies in the Tropics Group of Companies.

In the suit, Access Bank asserts that the collapse of IB, its very substantial loss after taxation in the period up to September 2009 (approximately N321 billion) led to the intervention by CBN, and the consequence that IB could no longer survive as a free-standing bank and had to be acquired and merged into the Claimant. Justice Burton noted that Akingbola during his cross-examination told lies and it was discovered that he devised and oversaw the implementation of the strategy to buy the Bank’s shares and thereby artificially increased its share price.

He further highlighted that at a time when the Bank was undergoing significant liquidity strain, Akingbola misappropriated N16 billion of Intercontinental Bank’s money and paid it to the Tropics companies, which he and his family owned and that the money in turn was used to repay those companies’ debts to their bankers, which debts Akingbola had guaranteed.

It was also observed that Akingbola paid £8.5 million of the Bank’s money to his English solicitors to complete the purchase of luxury properties in London.