By OLUGBENGA SOYELE
The management of Bi-Courtney Ltd yesterday maintained that the company did not owe the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) N50billion and that any allegation to that effect had not been confirmed by any court.
The company also accused the corporation of insincerity, breach of trust and feeding Nigerians with falsehood over a debt recovery suit between the two organisations.
These assertions were made by head of litigation, Babalakin and Company, Tola Oshobi, at a press conference held at the Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal Two in Lagos, in reaction to AMCON’s claims over the alleged debt.
LEADERSHIP recalls that Justice Ibrahim Buba last week vacated an earlier order made by a fellow judge, Justice Okon Abang, empowering AMCON to take over the assets of Bi-Courtney Group in order to liquidate an alleged N50 billion debt.
Bi-Courtney lamented that more than two years after a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered federal government to pay the sum of N132 billion to Bi-Courtney, the judgement was yet to be obeyed.
Dissatisfied with Justice Buba’s order, AMCON, through its lawyer, Olisa Agbakoba, filed a notice of appeal and formulated four grounds before the appellate court.
AMCON also filed another application before the same court for an injunction pending appeal to stop anyone whatsoever or howsoever from giving effect to Justice Buba’s order vacating that of Justice Abang.
According to AMCON, the fresh application became necessary owing to the need to “restrain the respondents (Bi-Courtney Group) from dissipating their assets and rendering nugatory the possible outcome of the appeal at the Court of Appeal.”
AMCON insisted that the Federal High Court had a duty to stay further proceedings in the suit pending appeal to avoid foisting a fait accompli on the Court of Appeal.
But Oshobi, in his reaction to the two application, stated that “the position of Bi-Courtney is that it is not indebted to AMCON and the reason is that there is a subsisting judgement of the Federal High Court, Abuja, that expressly awarded damages in the sum of N132 billion to Bi-Courtney and against the federal government.’’
“The same judgement specifically said that whatever claims AMCON has against Bi-Courtney should be deducted from the debt the federal government owes Bi-Courtney and remit the balance to Bi-Courtney.’’
“The debt owed the company by the Federal Government was predicated on the breach of an agreement between the firm and the government,” he said.
Oshobi further pointed out that that the refusal of the federal government to hand over the old domestic terminal of the Lagos airport was responsible for the default in the firm paying the loan it took from a consortium of banks.
The lawyer also described the purported takeover of the MM2 terminal and the old Federal Secretariat in Lagos by AMCON as a contrived reckless action and a deliberate assault on the integrity of the judicial system by the corporation and its appointed receiver.
The company stated that the assertion by AMCON that Bi-Courtney and its associated entities had signed an offer letter with AMCON which constitutes an admission of liability in the sum of N50 billion was not sincere.
He added that an offer letter being paraded by AMCON is not binding on it as the condition precedent had not been met.
According Oshobi: ‘’Every second year law student in any university that has studied contract law knows that it is elementary that when an agreement is made contingent on the occurrence of certain conditions precedent, that agreement does not become enforceable or binding until the occurrence of those event(s). The question AMCON needs to answer is which, if any, of these conditions precedent have been fulfilled?’’
“Bi-Courtney went into the concession for the development of the burnt terminal of the airport on build, operate and transfer basis. The understanding is that Bi-Courtney would source the funds to build the airport and run it for a number of years to recover its investment.’’
According to him, part of the understanding is that all flights in and out of Lagos would be operated to and from that terminal during the life of the concession and this is because it is the only way Bi-Courtney could recover its revenue, that right from the commencement of the concession, the federal government was in breach.
“At a point, about 70 percent of passengers were routed through MMA2 contrary to the agreement and we were losing huge revenue,’’ he added..
