Court orders Union Bank, “The Nation”, to pay N500m to Dec Oil and Gas

A Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has ordered Union Bank Plc and Vintage Press Limited, the pub­lishers of The Nation Newspa­pers, to pay Dec Oil and Gas Limited the sum of N500 mil­lion as damages in a libel suit.

On August 3, 2015, Union Bank Plc through The Nation Newspaper had published an article alleging that Dec Oil and Gas was indebted to the bank in the amount of N15.7 billion, according to a report by the Daily Independent.

The newspaper also named Mr. Patrick Sule Ugboma and Mr. Pius Malaka as directors of the company in a deliberate at­tempt to embarrass and cause public disaffection against them.

Dec Oil and Gas denied the allegations and filed a libel suit against the newspaper and the bank, the same year.

While delivering his judge­ment on June 6, 2023, Justice David Gbasam held that the defendants were unable to pro­vide evidence to support their claims that Dec Oil and Gas was indebted to the bank to the tune of N15.7 billion.

The judge also ordered Union Bank and Vintage Press to retract the publication and apologise to the claimants (Dec oil & Gas, Mr. Patrick Sule Ug­boma and Mr. Pius Malaka) in at least five newspapers.

In an unprecedented twist of events, Union Bank wrote to Dec Oil and Gas that it is in­debted to the bank to the tune of N15,734,674,954, claims that were out rightly denied in a written response to the bank on May 27, 2015.

This was after the bank had failed to furnish Dec Oil and Gas a statement of account af­ter repeated demands as was found by the court.

But acting in bad faith, Union Bank went ahead to victimise Dec Oil, Mr. Malaka and Mr. Ugboma in an article titled, ‘Revealed: Who Is Who On The List Of Big Bank Debt­ors’, published in The Nations Newspaper on August 3, 2015.

While delivering judgement in the suit last week, Justice Gbasam further held that the said publication was “unjust, reckless and libelous.”

He ordered the defendants to “jointly and severally pay over to the claimants the sum of N500, 000,000.00 only as general damages for libel and breach of the duty of confiden­tiality and or fiduciary relation­ship owed the claimants by the 1st defendant”.

The court also ordered that “An order be and is hereby directing the defendants to re­tract the said publication and publicly apologise to the claim­ants and cause such apology to be published in at least five na­tional newspapers in Nigeria.”

In addition, Justice Gbasam granted the claimants their prayer to stop Vintage Press and Union Bank from pub­lishing further libelous claims.

The judge ruled that “An order be and is hereby made granting perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from further publishing in any form the same or similar or re­lated statements concerning the claimants, in any manner whatsoever as debtors to the 1st defendant.”