A licensed stock brokerage firm,Valueline Securities and Investment
Limited, has filed a suit before a Federal High Court in Lagos against
founder of Living Faith Church, popularly known as Winners Chapel,
Bishop David Oyedepo, for alleged breach of agreement on multi-billion
naira investment in the Nigerian stock market.
The suit, which has
the firm and its Managing Director, Samuel Enyinnaya, as the first and
second plaintiffs, is before by Justice Mohammed Yunusa, who has fixed
February 16, 2015 for hearing.
Apart from Oyedepo and Living Faith
Church, others listed as defendants in the suit are World Mission
Agency Inc (the overall ruling organ of the church), Covenant
University, David Oyedepo Foundation, Mrs Faith Abiola Oyedepo
(Oyedepo’s wife), Joys Priscillia Oyedepo, Love Jesutobi Oyedepo, David
Makinde Oyedepo, Isaac Oyedepo (all Oyedepo’s children and blood
relatives) and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
The plaintiffs,
in its statement of claim, averred that Oyedepo and his relatives and organizations, who are the first to tenth defendants in the suit, had
approached them and indicated intention to make investment in the
Nigerian stock market and eventually appointed the plaintiffs as the
portfolio managers of the said investments.
The plaintiffs added
that an Investment Portfolio Management Agreement (IPMA) was
subsequently signed between the plaintiffs and the first to tenth
defendants whereby the plaintiffs were given far reaching powers to
exercise discretion and do everything within the ambit of the law to
ensure profitability of investment and equally give periodic reports.
The
plaintiffs further averred that 2.25 per cent of the net asset value of
the portfolio and annual incentive fee agreed at 10 per cent of the
returns on the investment were also agreed as part of the IPMA, after
which the first to tenth defendants released N9 billion to the
plaintiffs on installment basis.
The plaintiffs added that in
order to enhance profitability of the investment, some margin loans from
banks in Nigeria which turned out to be very lucrative for Oyedepo and
his organizations, and that periodic reports to that effect were equally
submitted.
However, the plaintiffs lamented that at a point when
Oyedepo wanted to buy his first private jet, World Mission Agency Inc.
ordered the sale of majority of the securities in the investment
portfolio, and that despite professional advice to the contrary, they
were made to sell the securities to raise the N3 billion needed for the
jet, a development which brought about huge losses to the investment.
The
sale of the securities coupled with the global economic meltdown which
caused stock market in the world over to crash, according to the
plaintiffs eventually made the investment portfolio to experience more
losses.
However, the plaintiff alleged that in a bid to avoid
their financial obligations to them, Oyedepo and his organisations wrote
a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
alleging fraud and embezzlement against them.
After six years of
investigation without any indictment by the EFCC, the plaintiffs alleged
that Oyedepo used his “religious denominational connection” in the NSE
to drag them before the NSE on the ground that their investment
portfolio was mismanaged and that margin loans were taken by the
plaintiffs without the consent of the first to tenth defendants.
The
trial within the NSE, according to the plaintiffs, was conducted in
prejudicial manner, a development they claimed necessitated the suit.
The
plaintiffs are therefore seeking an order of the court declaring that
the NSE had been conducting the trial before it in a manner prejudicial
to their fundamental right to fair hearing.
The plaintiffs also want the court to reverse the “malicious freezing of their trading accounts which were done by the NSE.”
In
the breakdown of monetary compensation, the plaintiffs urged the court
to compel NSE to pay them N61 million for the closure of their accounts
and an order compelling the first to tenth defendants to pay them N780
million, being their unpaid professional fees for managing their
investment portfolio.
In addition, the plaintiffs want N1 billion
damages jointly and severally against the defendants for the trauma and
psychological torture and loss of reputation occasioned to them by the
actions of the defendants as well as N25 million solicitors’ fees and
cost of action.
In a preliminary objection, the NSE insisted that
the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the suit as same ought to
have been filed before the Investment and Securities Tribunal (IST) and
not the Federal High Court.
The NSE also argued that the plaintiffs failed to file the mandatory pre-action notice before filing the suit.
Source:PM News
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