Leadership (Abuja)
3 October 2008
The Federal High Court yesterday in Lagos upheld the indictment of three former directors of the Cadbury Nigeria Plc by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The directors had challenged their indictment by an Administrative Proceedings Committee of SEC for alleged "cooking of the company's books to the tune of N13 billion".
The directors are Messrs Bunmi Oni (Managing Director), Ayodele Akadiri (Finance Director) and Christopher Okeke (a director and audit committee member).
SEC, the Administrative Proceedings Committee as well as the committee's Secretary, Mr Amos Azi, are the defendants in the suit.
In a judgement, Justice Abdullahi Mustapha held that the directors were unable to prove that they were denied the right to fair hearing as they claimed.
"I hold that none of the applicants succeeded in making out a case of infraction of his right to fair hearing," he said.
The judge held that SEC acted within its statutory powers in disqualifying the applicants and prescribing their punishments.
"It was within SEC's statutory powers to disqualify unfit persons from operating in the nation's capital market," he held.
Mustapha added that the committee's decision to recommend the applicants to the EFCC for further investigations and prosecution weakened the applicants' argument that the committee exercised criminal jurisdiction.
The judge held that there was no violation of the principles of natural justice as alleged by the directors, adding that the constitution of the committee was not contrary to the principle of natural justice.
The directors had challenged the process leading to their indictment and accused SEC of bias.
They equally challenged the committee's powers to prescribe punishment against them, and asked the court to quash the committee's report and recommendations.(NAN)
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