Oyo State Paper Mills Limited & Ors V. Nibel Company Nigeria Limited (2016)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

HARUNA SIMON TSAMMANI, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

This appeal is against the Ruling of the Federal High Court, sitting at Ibadan, delivered by A. O. Adejumo-Obaseki, J (as he then was) on the 16th day of April, 2013.

?By a petition for winding up of the 1st Appellant dated and filed on the 30th August, 2012, the Respondent as the petitioner sought the following reliefs:

(a) That Oyo State Paper Mills Limited be wound up by the Court under the provisions of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, Cap C20, Laws of the Federation, 2004; and

(b) For such order or other orders as the Honourable Court may deem fit to make in the circumstances.

Several documents were filed along with the petition, and which petition was duly verified by an affidavit deposed to by one Alaiyeluwa Adesesan Afolorunsho Oguntayo, the Managing Director of the Petitioner/Appellant, on the 30/08/2012. See pages 1 – 113 of the main Record of Appeal transmitted to this Court on the 23/7/2013. However, the Appellants filed a Motion dated the 2nd day of October, 2012,wherein they contested the competence of the petition. The said Motion which is at pages 1 and 2

1

of the Additional Record of Appeal, prayed the Court for:

(1). AN ORDER DISMISSING and/or striking out this petition in limine as the petitioner failed to satisfy the prerequisite conditions to the commencement of the instant petition before this Honourable Court

(2) AN ORDER DECLARING the instant petition as being incompetent and simultaneously constitutes an abuse of Court process.

(3). AND FOR SUCH further orders(s) as this Honourable Court may deem fit to make in the circumstances.

The Grounds upon which the objection was predicated are:

(a) That none of the statutory required steps to be taken before petition for winding up proceedings is filed, was satisfied before the instant petition was filed

(b) That the petitioner had all along since the incorporation of the 1st Respondent/Applicant administering, controlling and/or overseeing the affairs of the 1st Respondent/Applicant in one capacity or the other.