Guffanti Nigeria Plc V. Pidrella Austalt Vaduz & Ors (2013)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

RITA NOSAKHARE PEMU, J.C.A.(Delivering the Leading Judgment)

This appeal emanated from the Ruling of Hon. Justice Adeyinka of the High Court of Justice Lagos State, delivered on the 25th of May 2000 in Suit No ID/1320/1998.

In the Ruling, on an application for Judgment by admission dated 11/1/2000 by the 1st Respondent (as plaintiff at the lower court) he entered Judgment against the Appellant (Defendant at the court below) in favour of the 1st Respondent in the sum of N157,033,588.40k (One hundred and fifty seven million, thirty three thousand, five hundred and eighty-eight naira, forty kobo) only, being the sum admitted by the Appellant as money owed the 1st Respondent company in the Appellant’s Company Annual Reports and Accounts for the year ending 30/6/1994, with interest at 21% per annum, from the 30th of June 1994 till the date of the Judgment and thereafter at the rate of 6% per annum till liquidation.

The Entry on the Annual Report and Account of the Appellant Company in which the debt owed the 1st Respondent Company is reflected and allegedly admitted is at page 57 of the Record of Appeal.

The Appellant is dissatisfied with the Judgment and has consequently filed a Notice of Appeal on the 14th of July 2000 encapsulating five (5) Grounds of Appeal pages 73-78 of the Record of Appeal.

FACTS

The suit, the subject matter of this appeal was commenced by Writ of Summons dated 4th June 1998 – shown on pages 1-2 of the Record of Appeal instituted by Pidrella Austalt Vaduz as plaintiff (1st Respondent in the present appeal) and against Guffanti (Nigeria) plc (Appellant in the present appeal).

It is for the sum of USD8,336,278, being sum due and owing to the Plaintiff, or its naira equivalent, being the amount of goods supplied to the Defendant company as at May 1996 at its request, which it has persistently refused or neglected to pay; N2 million naira damages; interest at the rate of 21% per annum from May 1996 till Judgment, and thereafter 6% till liquidation of the debt; cost of N100,000.00.

After exchange of pleadings, the Plaintiff brought a motion for Judgment for an amount of over N157 million Naira, entered as debt due to the Plaintiff in the Defendant’s Annual Report and Account for the year 1994. At the lower court, it was alleged that the Defendant’s Annual Reports had been fraught with lie and fraudulent. That relevant facts had been kept away from the Auditors and that the accuracy of the Annual Reports and Accounts including those of 1993 and 1994 have been so seriously vitiated, as to render them unreliable for the purpose of the present suit. The 2nd and 3rd Respondents in this appeal, who were ordered to be joined as third parties, though served abroad with the process, never entered appearance in the case – page 109-115 of the Record of Appeal.

It is alleged that the 1st Respondent in its pleading, averred that the Appellant did not deny liability and had in fact admitted its liability as per its Annual Reports and Accounts for the year ended 1993 and 1994 as well as minutes of the meetings of the Appellant’s directors held on 6th of June 1990 at No. 411, Agege Motor Road, Mushin, Lagos.

The Appellant filed his Brief of Argument on the 6th of November, 2013 by a deeming order. The said Brief is settled by Professor A. B. Kasumu, SAN.

He distilled six (6) issues for determination which are:

(i) Whether the lower Court erred in law when instead of allowing the case to proceed to trial it upheld the plaintiff/Respondents’ Motion for Judgment in limine without in its Ruling to the Defendant/Respondent’s averment in its amended Statement of Defence that for years the Annual Reports and Accounts, including those for 1994 containing an entry of indebtedness to the Plaintiff/Respondent and relied upon in the Judgment as a conclusive admission, have never given a fair and truthful record of the Defendant/Appellant’s business and so their veracity has been so seriously vitiated as to render them lacking in credibility and for one in the present case.

(ii) Whether the lower Court erred in law when instead of allowing the case to proceed to trial it upheld the Plaintiff/Respondents’ Motion for Judgment in limine by holding that an entry of indebtedness to the Plaintiff/Respondent in the Defendant/Appellants 1994 Annual Report and Accounts is a conclusive proof of the admission of such indebtedness even though the materials before the court did not include all the ingredients necessary in raw to constitute an estoppels by admission under Section 151 of the Evidence Act.