{"id":16935,"date":"2019-04-15T17:53:59","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T17:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=16935"},"modified":"2019-04-15T17:53:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T17:53:59","slug":"16935","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=16935","title":{"rendered":"Access take over of Diamond Bank runs into troubled waters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0<strong>Fakoyejo Olalekan<\/strong> (<strong>www.nairametrics.com<\/strong>)<br \/>\nThe\u00a0Securities and Exchange Commission\u00a0(SEC) has been urged to nullify the merger between\u00a0Access Bank Plc\u00a0and\u00a0Diamond Bank Plc\u00a0which took effect in March 2019.<br \/>\nSEC\u00a0was advised by Chief Don Etiebet,\u00a0a former Minister of Petroleum, to nullify the consolidation, not because the merger threatens fair play in the banking industry, but because of an on-going court case against\u00a0Access Bank Plc\u00a0and its\u00a0Chief Executive Officer, Herbert Wigwe.<br \/>\nEtiebet made the request in a\u00a0petition written to\u00a0Securities and Exchange Commission, notifying the stock market regulator\u00a0of an impending court case against\u00a0Access Bank Plc, Mr Wigwe,\u00a0and other executive directors.<br \/>\nAccording to the petition which is dated March 19, 2019, Etiebet said his decision to seek for a nullification of the merger was in pursuant to the provision of Section 124 (3) of the Investment and Securities Act 2007 which \u2018empowers any person to voluntarily file any document, affidavit, statement or other relevant information in respect of the merger\u2019.<br \/>\nEtiebet\u2019s argument: Etiebet accused\u00a0Access Bank Plc\u00a0and its executives of hiding the\u00a0criminal charges against them from\u00a0SEC\u00a0and other regulators like the\u00a0Central Bank of Nigeria\u00a0(CBN). He further argued that if the regulators had knowledge of the case, the merger would not have been approved.<br \/>\n<strong>This can affect the Access Bank and Diamond Bank merger<\/strong><br \/>\nEtiebet\u2019s petition to\u00a0SEC\u00a0against the merger can see the approval of the consolidation withdrawn if\u00a0SEC\u00a0discovers\u00a0Access Bank Plc\u00a0truly hid the fraud case from regulators.<br \/>\nEtiebet based his argument on the\u00a0provision of Section 127 of the Investment and Securities Act 2007, which states that;<br \/>\n\u201cTHE COMMISSION MAY REVOKE ITS OWN DECISION TO APPROVE OR CONDITIONALLY APPROVE A SMALL, INTERMEDIATE OR LARGE MERGER IF THE DECISION WAS BASED ON INCORRECT INFORMATION FOR WHICH A PARTY TO THE MERGER IS RESPONSIBLE AND THE APPROVAL WAS OBTAINED IN DECEIT.\u201d<br \/>\n<strong>Access Bank clarified stand in the Fraud case<\/strong><br \/>\nIn March 2019,\u00a0Access Bank Plc\u00a0released a statement clarifying the company\u2019s position,including that of its CEO and Directors. The Bank claimed that it actually reported the case first to the\u00a0Police Special Fraud Unit before a suit was filed against\u00a0Access Bank.<br \/>\nIn the statement, the management said in 2015, the bank made financial provision for a customer \u2014\u00a0Metal Steel Products Limited\u00a0\u2014 to import billets and other machinery used for the expansion of the customers\u2019 factory. But following the arrival of the imported goods, the company, (i.e, the customer), went ahead to clear imports without first making some necessary payments.<br \/>\nThis prompted\u00a0Access Bank Plc\u00a0to report the development to the Police Special Fraud Unit, which obtained a court order for\u00a0Access Bank\u00a0to take over\u00a0Metal Steel Products Limited\u2019s business operations.<br \/>\nAdding that the lawsuit was instituted due to the\u00a0misunderstanding between the Registrar that took charge of the property and\u00a0Metal Steel Products Limited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0Fakoyejo Olalekan (www.nairametrics.com) The\u00a0Securities and Exchange Commission\u00a0(SEC) has been urged to nullify the merger between\u00a0Access Bank Plc\u00a0and\u00a0Diamond Bank Plc\u00a0which took effect in March 2019. SEC\u00a0was advised by Chief Don Etiebet,\u00a0a former Minister of Petroleum, to nullify the consolidation, not because the merger threatens fair play in the banking industry, but because of an on-going court [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}