One of Nigeria’s commercial banks, Sterling Bank Plc has allegedly defrauded one its corporate customers, Hotel Excel of a whopping N274, 049, 374.49 million.
Prior to the merger of the Sterling Bank and Equitorial Bank Limited, Hotel Excel was a customer of Warri Delta State branch of Equitorial Trust Bank Limited (now Sterling Bank).
Hotel Excel Limited is a limited liability company duly incorporated in Nigeria as hoteliers and having its principal place of business at Km 1, Refinery Road Effurun, Warri, Delta State of Nigeria.
While, Sterling Bank Plc is a Public Liability Company duly registered and licensed in Nigeria as a commercial bank and having its registered office at 20, Marina, Lagos with branches in several cities in Nigeria including Warri, Delta State.
However, Hotel Excel Limited maintained three current accounts with Warri Branch of Sterling Bank. The said accounts were opened and operated with Equitorial Trust Limited on Friday 12th August 2011. It would be recalled that Equitorial Trust Bank merged with and became a part of the Sterling Bank Plc.
Hotel Excel maintained three current accounts namely: Account number 0310008901, 0310009016 and 0310009087 with Sterling Bank Plc.
In the course of its banking relationship with Sterling Bank Plc, Hotel Excel was granted credit overdraft facilities on its aforesaid current accounts which it had since repaid in full.
Hotel Excel has made several lodgments totaling N1,916,368,852.19 into its account No. 0310008901 and N147, 795,880.80 into its account No. 0310009087 making a total of N2,064,164,735.99 (Two Billion, Sixty-four Million, one hundred and sixty-four thousand, seven hundred and thirty-five naira, ninety-nine kobo)
Surprisingly Sterling Bank Plc recently began to inundate Hotel Excel with letters of demand claiming that it is indebted to Sterling Bank as successors-in title of the defunct Equitorial Trust Bank.
Hotel Excel avers that Sterling Bank was in the habit of not sending to it a periodic statement of its account as contracted. It was not until very recently and after concerted demands by Hotel Excel’s chairman that Sterling Bank submitted a comprehensive statement on each of its three accounts.
However, Hotel Excel was disappointed and dissatisfied with the statement of Account delivered to it by Sterling Bank and commissioned an audit of its financial transactions with Sterling Bank.
Hotel Excel’s chairman again requested for Sterling Bank’s comprehensive statement of its account from inception and disclosed that it was required for audit purposes which Sterling Bank obliged.
Unfortunately, it became clear to Hotel Excel from a cursory examination of the two sets of statements of account that they were violently conflicting, contained bloated charges and alleged fraudulent entries in the account.
Here are the particulars of the alleged fraudulent entries
• The first statement on Hotel Excel’s account No. 0310009018 prepared by Sterling Bank on 22nd December 2000, commenced on 01-01-04 with nil balance and the first transaction therein was a credit lodgment of N5, 286,721.08 i.e four years later. But the second statement of the same account prepared also by Sterling Bank in March 2012 commenced with a nil balance with a first transaction being an inwards transfer of N6, 546,057.68 on 23-02-04 and contains robust transactions spanning over a total of 197 pages between 01-01-04 to 01-01-08. Hotel Excel avers that this was a conscious and calculated effort by Sterling Bank to shield from the account holder, the several fraudulent entries into its account.
• The first statement of Accounts No. 03100090018 prepared by Sterling Bank on 22nd December 2011 contained only seven entries for the month of April 2009 the last of which was on 07.04.09 and showed a credit balance of N140, 522,120.52 as at 07.04.09 but the second statement of the same account prepared also by Sterling Bank on 29 March 2012 contained 28 entries for the same month of April 2009, the last of which was 30.04.09 and showed a credit balance of only N1, 9..,560.10
The above are just a very few random samples of the alleged fraudulent false accounting practiced by Sterling Bank over Hotel Excel’s accounts with it.
Hotel Excel avers that Sterling Bank is vicariously liable for the fraud allegedly perpetrated by its officials and staff who have tempered in various ways with his accounts.
However, following the spot findings of its auditors, Hotel Excel commissioned a firm of forensic investigators to scrutinise its said three accounts with Sterling Bank and the outcome wasn’t pleasant.
The said forensic investigators disclosed that Sterling Bank arbitrarily charged excessive interests and other charges in the total sum of N274,049,374.49 (two hundred and seventy four million, forty nine thousand, three hundred and seventy-four Naira, forty nine kobo) on Hotel Excel accounts in gross contravention of the Central Bank of Nigeria Guidelines and Monetary Policies.
By the conduct of Sterling Bank Plc, Hotel Excel was deprived of the use of monies lodged in its account which should have been available to it as credit balances but was wrongly applied and dissipated by Sterling Bank to the imaginary debt.
Despite the fact that Hotel Excel had fully liquidated the loan granted, Sterling Bank classified the imaginary debt of Hotel Excel as a non-performing loan asset and purportedly sold same to Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria.
