The Chairman of the Edmark Group of Companies, Sam Low Ban Chai, has applied to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, asking that the presiding judge of the Etim Maurice Anthony v Edmark Direct Marketing Limited case, Hon. Justice C. J Aneke of the Ikeja Division of the Federal High Court be recused from the matter for likelihood of bias.
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This came after the presiding judge granted an ex-parte order to a petitioner who is a 5% shareholder of the Company on 14th of May 2023. In the application, which was tendered on 22nd of February 2023 at the Federal High Court in Abuja, the applicant had asked the Chief Judge, Hon. Justice John Termhemba Tsoho of the Federal High Court that his company has been shut down since the 22nd of June 2023 when the ex-parte order was executed and has cause irreparable damages.
The Edmark Group of Companies is a multinational company specialized in household products with presence in 28 countries across the world, Nigeria, inclusive. Since June 22nd, the respondent (Sam Low Ban Chai) had his company crippled down, with both local and expatriate workers driven out and the business premises shutdown following the execution of an ex-parte order granted by the judge sitting in the Ikeja Division of the Federal High Court and have since led to the lose of job of over 22, 000 distributors, shareholders and workers across the federation.
On the likelihood of bias, he alleged that being an order granted on the 24th of May 2022, was executed on the 22nd of June, being about a month after it was issued. The petitioner claims to have 5% unpaid shares in the company and had petitioned Hon. Justice C.J Aneke for redress. However, the judge had bestowed control of the entire company to a person with 5% share over the respondent who had 95% of shares.
Also, the applicant stated that the presiding judge had imposed a manager/receiver on the company which was against the standard procedure, as the company was neither insolvent nor was, he, bankrupt, for it to be handed over to a third party who was also a cohort to the petitioner. He had also ordered that all the bank accounts of the company be freeze.
According to him, the petitioner, he alleged, was only a 5% shareholder and debtor to the company and so, he had empowered a debtor to take over the company. Upon several application by the respondent, one of which is an objection challenging the jurisdiction of the court to the suit and withdrawal of the ex-parte order granted on the 14th May 2022, the judge had refused to hear or give audience to them, while attending to all applications filed by the petitioner with swiftness and uncommon speed. In his closing paragraph he had stated that:
“Since the 22nd of June 2022, the respondent investment has been completely shut down and paralyzed by ex-parte order of the court without an end in sight. The respondent expatriate-staff has since left Nigeria upon actual threat to their lives by the petitioner and some of which have not agreed to come back to attend to their specialized functions.
The respondent has continued to record huge losses on a daily basis without a justifiable reason and over 22,000 distributors of the respondent healthy live products and their families and their dependents have been rendered jobless by the ex-parte order. The multi-billion naira building/structure that actively ongoing at lekki, Lagos, Nigeria has been abandoned; contracts cancelled and facilities are in waste as a result of the undeserved ex-parte order of the Honourable court. The Respondent imported products with expiry dates are wasting and gathering huge demurrage at the Nigerian Port Authority and in ware houses”
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