The Lagos division of the National Industrial Court has adjourned till December 13, 2017 for hearing in a suit filed by ex-bankers, who were disengaged following the 2006 banking sector restructure.
The former bank workers, numbering 847, are among thousands who lost their jobs in 2006 when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revoked the operational licences of 13 commercial banks for failing to attain the N25bn capitalisation threshold then introduced and enforced by the apex bank.
The ex-bankers are seeking to recover their terminal benefits, which they put at N9,166,424,276, from four commercial banks, which acquired the eight banks for which they were working prior to the 2006 capitalisation.
The eight banks they were working for but whose lincences were revoked in 2006 are All States Trust Bank, Hallmark Bank, Gulf Bank Plc, Liberty Bank, Metropolitan Bank, Trade Bank, Assurance Bank and Eagle Bank.
Joined as defendants in their suit marked NIC/LA/603/2016 before Justice Benedict Kanyip are the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), CBN, and four banks – Ecobank Nigeria Limited, United Bank for Africa Plc, Skye Bank Plc and Zenith Bank Plc – which acquired the eight banks for which the claimants were working.
The ex-bank workers are urging the court to declare that the NDIC and the CBN acted contrary to the law and prejudiced their interests while entering into agreements with Ecobank, UBA, Skye Bank and Zenith Bank, to sell the assets of their former employers.
The claimants, through their lawyer, Dotun Onafowope, are contending that it was unlawful and wrong for the NDIC and the CBN to sell the assets of the eight banks without also transferring the liability of paying the terminal benefits of the disengaged bank workers to Ecobank, UBA, Skye Bank and Zenith Bank.
0 comments:
Post a Comment