Court Orders bank to pay entitlements of former employee.

An Ikeja High Court in Lagos on Monday ordered the United Bank for Africa Plc to pay its former employee, Gogo Anyanwu, his entitlements after he resigned from the bank following deductions from his salary.

The deductions were to repay a loan he granted a customer who later took ill.

Justice Opeyemi Oke, in her judgment, said it was illegal for any bank to recover loans by debiting its employees without their consent.

Anyanwu ,who was an Assistant Banking Officer had recommended that two customers, PMO Global limited and First Omega Network Limited, be given a loan of N2 million and N4 million respectively.

The loans were granted but the second creditor defaulted with the repayment of the entire loan because its Chief Executive Officer took ill.

In a bid to recover the loan, UBA converted it to a personal loan to Anyanwu, deducting it from his emoluments.

The claimant had told the court that his June and July 2005 salary of N51, 015 were withheld, as well as July 2005 Guranteed Bonus Pay of N341, 391.

Also withheld was his five-year long service benefit of N650, 000 and disengagement benefits of N123, 500.

He said he was forced to resign from the bank in June 2006 following intimidations and threats from his employers over the loans.

The court ordered the bank to pay Anyanwu all the withheld money, as well as N500, 000 as general damages and N300,000 as cost of the suit.

The bank is to pay an interest on the total sum at the rate of 15 per cent per annum from July 2006 until the day the judgment was delivered, as well as 10 percent interest on the sum until it is liquidated.

Oke held that there was no doubt the claimant suffered from the bank’s obnoxious policy, adding that there was no evidence that the claimant applied for a personal loan.

She held that the bank had no right to transfer a third party debt to any employee without lawful reason.

Such practice, she held, “was repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience.”

According to her, the claimant only recommended the creditor and was not the one who approved the loan.

The bank’s managers, she held, had a right to turn the loan application down but failed to do so.

Oke said It is evident that the granting of overdraft facility is not a one man affair as it involves painstaking scrutiny and an approval process that involves the entire chain of command depending on the amount requested.

I therefore hold that the claimant cannot be held responsible for the failure of the creditor to repay the loan, she held.