By Demola Abimboye
In order to preserve the assets from being dissipated by the company’s owners or their agents, a Federal High Court in Lagos has appointed the Chief Registrar of the court as provisional liquidator of Chicason Nigeria Limited.
He takes charge of all the identified /traceable assets and funds of the company in banks and other financial institutions pending the hearing and final determination of the winding up petition filed against the company.
The order of the presiding judge, Nicholas Oweibo, was sequel to a motion on notice filed and argued before the court, urging it to appoint provisional liquidator for the company, pending the final determination of the winding up petition filed against the company.
In an affidavit sworn to by a litigation officer Chima Chukwuekwe, it was alleged that the petition was presented to wind up Chicason Nigeria Limited due to its inability to liquidate its admitted huge outstanding indebtedness to the petitioner.
Chicason Nigeria Limited was alleged to have obtained N1,380,000,000.from defunct Intercontinental Bank for the purposes of purchasing machineries and equipment which include blow moulding machines, packaging equipment for vegetable oil, soap and detergent lubricants production, conveyor system, tin making and folding equipment amongst other machineries.
In securing the N1,380,000,000 loan the company pledged among others a property located at Plot 3527 off Osun Crescent, Cadastral Zone, A6 Maitama, Abuja. But an attempt to register the aforesaid and search conducted revealed that statutory right over the property had been revoked.
After the disbursement of the huge funds to the company, it became impracticable for the bank to perfect all the securities availed by the company.
Thereafter, the respondent in the face of repeated demands failed and variously refused to liquidate the entire huge depositors’ funds as at when due at the evolution of the maturity due date.
Following the company’s un-ending default and having suffered various queries from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, at the instance of non-performing toxic loans more so since Intercontinental Bank Plc went under as a result of toxic bad debts similar to the instant one, the bank mandated its solicitor to call in the entire indebtedness and issue the requisite statutory demand against the company.
It was alleged further that the company is insolvent and unable to pay its debts as demanded. Thus, placing of the company’s assets in the custody of provisional liquidator is to preserve the assets pending the hearing and final determination of the petition to prevent same from being dissipated by the company’s chairman, its directors as well as its agent and privies.
In his ruling, Justice Oweibo acceded to the request of the petitioner by appointing Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court as provisional liquidator.