A Federal High Court in Lagos has further reserved ruling till May 27, 2015, on the preliminary objection filed by the founder, Living Faith Church, a.k.a. Winners’ Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo, against the N1.86bn claim by a stock brokerage firm.
The firm, Valueline Securities and Investment Limited, and its Managing Director, Samuel Enyinnaya, had sued Oyedepo for alleged breach of contract in a N9bn stock market deal.
Also joined in the claim are Oyedepo’s family, his book publishing company, the Winners’ Chapel and the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
They prayed the court to declare as illegal, the freezing of their bank accounts by NSE and to make an order to immediately unfreeze their accounts.
But Oyedepo, through his lawyer, Mr. Chioma Okwuanyi, had urged the court to discountenance the plaintiffs’ claims and to decline jurisdiction over the case which was the fallout of a capital market transaction.
The ruling on the objection was, however, adjourned for the third time till May 27, the parties having filed and moved their final written addresses since February 26.
In the three-ground preliminary objection, Okwuanyi contended that by the provisions of Section 34 of the Investment and Securities Act, only the Investment and Securities Tribunal had the vested authority to entertain a dispute between a capital market operator and his client and not a Federal High Court, to which the plaintiff had brought the matter.
The lawyer argued that the plaintiffs’ suit as presently constituted before Justice Mohammed Yunusa was premature, as the plaintiff had yet to explore all the avenues laid down to resolve such a dispute before heading for the court.
“My Lord, what we are saying is that, going by the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs, they have said that this issue is a simple contract relating to investment portfolio management and our contention is that issues of simple contracts are never within the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.
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