Rotimi Agboluaje, Ibadan
An Iseyin-based , Oyo State beverage distributing firm, Faidsam Nigeria Limited, has dragged International Breweries Plc, Ilesa, Osun State to Court of Appeal.
The distributor is appealing a judgment secured against it by the brewery at an Osun State High Court sitting in Ilesa.
In a notice of appeal made available to newsmen in Ibadan by the Managing Director of the company, Mr Wasiu Adelabu, the firm filed its appeal against the judgment in the suit HIL/90/2016- International Breweries Plc vs Faidsam Nigeria Limited and 1 other delivered on Jan. 25 by an Osun State High Court, Ilesa.
The firm appealed the ruling on account of dissatisfaction with the judgment of the trial court, in spite of the weight of the evidences presented before it.
The Appeal Court has directed an unconditional stay of execution of the judgment delivered by the trial court.
The court directed the parties, particularly the plaintiff from carrying out or undertaking any act of omission in execution of the judgment pending the hearing and determination of the applicant’s appeal to the Court of Appeal against the judgment.
The Ilesa-based brewery had dragged the firm to the trial court over disagreement on payment of credit facility by Faidsam Nigeria Limited.
The plaintiff argued that Faidsam had refused to pay it a sum of N53million accrued from a credit facility.
However, the distributor had argued that the plaintiff allegedly defrauded it through a cumbersome accounting system.
Adelabu told journalists that the company had severally sought to reconcile its account with that of International Breweries, which the company never allowed.
According to the merchant: “After several failed attempts, our company employed the services of an auditing firm, Fola Ojeyanju and Co. They did their auditing between September and October 2014.
“When the two companies sat for the reconciliation, it was discovered that the company has defrauded ours of N23, 588, 192.12 within a single financial year.
“If we were defrauded N23million in just a single financial year, how much do we know was lost to the same system in the previous years.
“We told the company to allow us audit from the previous years but it was frustrated. We then urged the company to write-off the outstanding payment on our credit facility to start afresh but they rebuffed”.
Adelabu said that the brewery aborted the scheduled meetings between both companies before it dragged them to the court, which gave judgment in their favor.
He said that the company has also approached the appellate court with prayers that the judgment should be upturned.
Comments are closed.