GTBank faults media reports of compensation to Innoson

Innoson Innocent Chukwuma

Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) has described as “false, mischievous and malicious” media reports that the Supreme Court asked it to pay N6 billion into an interest-yielding account as compensation to Chairman of Innoson Motors, Innocent Chukwuma.

A statement signed by the bank’s Company Secretary, Erhi Obebeduo, said the public should disregard the reports as nothing could be further from the truth.

The Supreme Court had ruled on Thursday that the motions on notice before it in the case between Chukwuma and GTBank were a distraction to the main appeal still pending at the Appeal Court.

It, therefore, advised parties to withdraw their applications and go back to the Court of Appeal for hearing of the substantive appeal.

Consequently, both motions on notice filed by the parties were withdrawn and struck out.

Innoson spokesperson, Cornel Osigwe, however, said in a statement on Thursday that the Supreme Court struck out the motion for stay of execution of the Enugu Court of Appeal order that GTBank pay N6billion into an interest-yielding account within 14 days.

Faulting the claim, GTBank said it won’t be deterred from recovering its funds from debtor customers.

“The bank as a highly responsible corporate citizen will in accordance with its culture and tradition refrain from making comments about on-going litigation matters and will continue to focus on using legal means to recover its bad debts. It must be emphasised that the bank remains undeterred in its recovery drive against recalcitrant debtors.

“We again reiterate that there is no iota of truth in the falsehood being peddled by desperate and mischievous elements and the general public should disregard same in its entirety.

“The bank remains committed to providing best-in-class customer experience to all its valued customer,” Obebeduo said.