A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on
Tuesday declined making an order to stop MTN Nigeria Communications
Limited from moving its funds in 21 Nigerian banks out of the country.
The mareva application had been
filed to prevent MTN from boycotting the payment of the N1.04tn fine
imposed on it by the Nigerian Communications Commission for its failure
to deactivate its unregistered subscribers.
The Attorney General of the Federation
and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), who filed the
application on Tuesday, expressed the fear that MTN could move all its
funds out of the country before the N1.04tn fine could be enforced.
He had sought an order directing all the
21 banks to open a special interest-yielding account in the name of the
Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court and move N1.04tn out of the
funds belonging to MTN into it.
The counsel for the AGF, Mr. Dipo
Okpeseyi (SAN), in a 14-paragraph affidavit deposed to by a lawyer in
his chamber, Steve Nwabueze, had argued that MTN was in the habit of
regularly repatriating its funds out of Nigeria.
He noted that between October 2007 and
May 2009, a period of 19 months, MTN moved over $7.7bn of the money made
in Nigeria to a foreign account.
He further drew the court’s attention to
an instance when in one day, specifically on February 8, 2008, MTN
transferred over $936m out of Nigeria to accounts in Mauritius, Cayman
Island and British Virgin Island.
“Unless this honourable court urgently
entertains this application, the plaintiff/respondent would move its
funds out of Nigeria, being the jurisdiction of this honourable court,
and thereby frustrate the enforcement of the fine in the likely event
that this honourable court sanctions the imposition of the fine,” the
AGF’s counsel added.
Okpeseyi maintained that MTN was under
an obligation to pay the N1.04tn fine because it was NCC’s
administrative decision which remained final, unless it was reviewed by
the commission or nullified by the court.
He said though NCC had earlier given MTN
a concession on the fine and reduced it to N780bn, but since MTN had
neglected or failed to pay on or before December 31, 2015, the fine
remained N1.04tn.
He alleged that instead of taking
advantage of the concession, MTN resorted to filing a suit in order to
buy time, with the hope that it could move all its funds out of Nigeria
before the case would be decided.
Okpeseyi urged the court to grant the
application in the interest of justice to prevent the court’s decision
from being rendered nugatory if it went in favour of NCC and the AGF.
But Justice Mohammed Idris declined
making the order as he said the AGF had not shown enough facts to prove
that MTN was about to move its funds out of the country.
Idris, who noted that the case was
sensitive and of public interest, said he would rather urgently hear the
case filed by MTN to challenge the fine and give a judgment within a
short time.
He, however, made an order for the parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum pending the determination of the suit and adjourned till January 22, 2016 for hearing.
MTN had assembled seven Senior Advocates
of Nigeria, led by Chief Wole Olanipekun, to challenge the N1.04tn fine
imposed on it by NCC.
The company contended that the NCC could not act pursuant to Section 70 of the NCC Act to impose the fine on it.
But Malami, who took sides with the NCC
and justified the imposed fine, said it was his duty, as the chief law
enforcement officer in the country, to ensure that all the laws made by
the National Assembly were obeyed.
Punch
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