UniBank Receivership: Appeal Court overrides High Court ruling; maintains Nii Amanor Dodoo as Receiver
An Appeal Court has suspended the ruling of an Accra High Court that held the ruling that the appointment of Nii Amanor Dodoo as Receiver of Unibank Ghana Limited was void and of no effect.
The Court of Appeal in its ruling on July 28, 2021, stayed the execution and effect of the ruling of the High Court dated 24 June 2021, in the ongoing legal case of uniBank v Dr Duffour and 9 others.
In the civil case to recover over GHS 5.7 Billion from Dr Kwabena Duffour and the other Defendants, the High Court granted an application by Dr Kwabena Duffour and the other Defendants and struck out uniBank’s case against them, based on the argument that Nii Amanor Dodoo should not have accepted Bank of Ghana’s appointment as Receiver of uniBank on the basis that two years had not passed since he worked on the team of the Official Administrator of uniBank.
uniBank acting through the Receiver as its legal representative, appealed against the decision on 28 June 2021 and filed an application for Stay of Execution, arguing that
(i) the High Court’s ruling was likely to be reversed on appeal, and
(ii) a successful appeal would be rendered useless if (while the appeal was pending) Dr Duffour, the other defendants and anybody else relied on the now-suspended ruling to the detriment of uniBank.
In a unanimous judgment read by Justice Mrs Margaret Welbourne, a Justice of the Appeal Court, the Court of Appeal held that the grounds of appeal contained “arguable points of law”.
The Court of Appeal also ruled that uniBank acting through the Receiver as its legal representative had demonstrated that there were “exceptional circumstances” supporting the suspension of the High Court’s ruling, including the impact the ruling could have on the entire financial sector.
The import of this decision by the second-highest court in Ghana is that Nii Amanor Dodoo can continue to act as Receiver of uniBank, while the appeal progresses.
