… Chief Justice’ Lawyer In US$5million Bribe Allegation Features.
A deafening double-take by a sitting High Court judge on his own ruling some years ago is threatening to reopen the debate about the credibility of the judiciary.
The Judge, Justice Jerome Noble Nkrumah a High Court judge had ruled on a case six years ago and had directly contradicted his own ruling strangely when the same case got to him again this year.
Noticeable in the legal anomaly is lawyer Yaw Oppong, who is a legal counsel for Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah who was recently accused of collecting some US$ 5 million bribe to undertake “legal gymnastics” for a litigant.
Yaw Oppong represents the National Investment Bank, (NIB) one of the parties in the flip-flopping ruling issued by Justice Noble Nkrumah. This has gotten eyebrows raised within circles of critics who suspect a circle of rogue dealings in the judiciary spearheaded by some known names.
On February 2, 2016, Justice Jerome Noble Nkrumah ruled that ‘Eland International Company Vs National Investment Bank (with Eland International Ghana as the third party) be referred to arbitration in London. But on 22nd March 2021, the same judge, presiding over the same court, ruled that the 2016 ruling was a mistake and therefore it is revoked.
Normally, the same judge should not be recanting his ruling, but by a higher court after the ruling has been appealed.
The development has left observers scratching their heads as suspicion of underhand dealings gets rife. This is coming particularly amidst rampant reports of high-profile bribery cases in the judiciary.
Eland International Company Vs National Investment Bank (with Eland International Ghana as the third party)’ arose when a collateral management agreement (CMA) between Eland International and its local subsidiary, Eland Ghana with the NIB run into problems culminating into gargantuan scandal in which the former MD of the National Investment Bank, Daniel Gyimah stars.
The collateral management agreement and it attending memorandum of understanding (MOU) entails Eland international supplying goods from abroad to warehouses manned by the NIB for sale in Ghana. According to information, a dispute arose over NIB not so accurate accounting for the supplies that were made to the warehouses.
Several breaches of the CMA, including forgery of signatures, stealing of moneys from escrow deposit accounts belonging to the parties were alleged on the parts of the NIB’s Daniel Gyimah and gangs.
Providentially, a 2004 document covering the agreement between the parties had included a clause which had provided for any dispute that might arise to be sent to arbitration in London (the United Kingdom. And so when a dispute arose, Eland went to court in Ghana to enforce the clause in question.
For some inexplicable reason, the NIB fought the quest by Eland to have the issue go for arbitration in the UK. The bank, therefore, argued before Justice Jerome Noble Nkrumah that the couching of the arbitration clause was amorphous and did not bind the parties to arbitration over the dispute.
According to the bank, the vagueness in the clause lay in the fact that it did not specify any appointing authority before whom the arbitration was to be held.
However, His Lordship Justice Jerome had dismissed NIB’s argument and ruled for the case to go to arbitration as provided for by clause 6 of the CMA.
In his 22nd March 2021 ruling on the same case, however, the judge implies that the ruling was a mistake and obtained by fraud and revoked it.
Adjudication leading to the revocation of the court’s judgment had been instigated by the NIB, which had returned to the court claiming that in its original pleadings before the 2016 ruling, it had neglected to indicate fraud on the part of Eland. The bank had then gone on to argue that fraud was not a subject of arbitration.
Eland has argued the fraud that the NIB is accusing it of did not happen and that even if it did, then it can be dealt with at arbitration since the UK legal system deems fraud arbitrable.
However, Justice Noble Nkrumah sided with the NIB and therefore revoked the ruling that sent the case to arbitration six years ago.
Eland International has since dragged the judge before the supreme court to compel him against any judicial infidelity.
The development has got observers wondering and thrown a plethora of questions into the air, chief among them whether it is proper for a court to revoke its own ruling in the same case after six years. Many are wondering why the NIB did not appeal the High Court’s ruling instead.
And then, some are wondering why the NIB, in the first place, appears so afraid to have the case go on arbitration in the UK, arbitration being a less hostile process than the criminal proceedings that it has now started in the Ghana court.
Whatsup News is on the trail of the developments in the case and would keep readers update.
