FRCN's Lawyer furious over Stanbic IBTC Sanction

Professor Fabian Ajogwu

 It has emerged that the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) was too hasty in its decision to sanction Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc and its officials without fair hearing, compelling its legal counsel, Professor Fabian Ajogwu (SAN), to withdraw his law firm’s services to the regulator.

According to sources close to Ajogwu’s law firm, Kenna & Associates, Ajogwu was particularly concerned that immediately FRCN announced the suspension of the bank’s directors’ Financial Report Numbers on its website on Monday, on the same day, the council penalised Stanbic IBTC to the tune of N1 billion, in flagrant disregard of the Act setting it up and laid down procedures.

FRCN had sanctioned Stanbic IBTC over its audited accounts for 2013 and 2014 and suspended the Financial Reporting Numbers of the bank’s Chairman, Mr. Atedo Peterside, and its Chief Executive, Mrs. Sola David-Borha, and also barred them forthwith from vouching for the integrity of any financial statements in Nigeria.

Further investigations by ThisDay revealed that it was due to the hasty decision of FRCN to sanction the bank that compelled its lawyer, Professor Ajogwu, to withdraw his firm’s services to the council.

Ajogwu, it was gathered, had advised the council to tread cautiously on the issue by calling the bank for talks only to discover that the council had imposed a litany of sanctions on the bank.

The lawyer had also advised that it would be against the principle of fair hearing and natural justice if the council went ahead to sanction the bank.

Particularly worrisome was the fact that the council’s Act makes it clear that sanctions could only be imposed after the law courts may have found the reporting entity liable. But this was not followed, said a source close to the law firm.

Efforts to get Kenna & Associates and Ajogwu to confirm the decision not to provide legal advisory service to FRCN any longer was fruitles.

An associate of the firm, who preferred not to be named, informed ThisDAy that he was not aware that his firm had ceased to advise FRCN. “Besides, the issue cannot be discussed due to lawyer-client confidentiality,” he added.