A Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has ordered Union Bank Plc and Vintage Press Limited, the publishers of The Nation Newspapers, to pay Dec Oil and Gas Limited the sum of N500 million as damages in a libel suit.

On August 3, 2015, Union Bank Plc through The Nation Newspaper had published an article alleging that Dec Oil and Gas was indebted to the bank in the amount of N15.7 billion.

The newspaper also named Mr. Patrick Sule Ugboma and Mr. Pius Malaka as directors of the company in a deliberate attempt to embarrass and cause public disaffection against them.

Dec Oil and Gas denied the allegations and filed a libel suit against the newspaper and the bank, the same year.

While delivering his judgement on June 6, 2023, Justice David Gbasam held that the defendants were unable to provide evidence to support their claims that Dec Oil and Gas was indebted to the bank to the tune of N15.7 billion.

The judge also ordered Union Bank and Vintage Press to retract the publication and apologise to the claimants (Dec oil & Gas, Mr. Patrick Sule Ugboma and Mr. Pius Malaka) in at least five newspapers.

In an unprecedented twist of events, Union Bank wrote to Dec Oil and Gas that it is indebted to the bank to the tune of N15,734,674,954, claims that were out rightly denied in a written response to the bank on May 27, 2015.

This was after the bank had failed to furnish Dec Oil and Gas a statement of account after repeated demands as was found by the court.

But acting in bad faith, Union Bank went ahead to victimise Dec Oil, Mr. Malaka and Mr. Ugboma in an article titled, ‘Revealed: Who Is Who On The List Of Big Bank Debtors’, published in The Nations Newspaper on August 3, 2015.

While delivering judgement in the suit last week, Justice Gbasam further held that the said publication was “unjust, reckless and libelous.”

He ordered the defendants to “jointly and severally pay over to the claimants the sum of N500, 000,000.00 only as general damages for libel and breach of the duty of confidentiality and or fiduciary relationship owed the claimants by the 1st defendant”.

The court also ordered that “An order be and is hereby directing the defendants to retract the said publication and publicly apologise to the claimants and cause such apology to be published in at least five national newspapers in Nigeria.”

In addition, Justice Gbasam granted the claimants their prayer to stop Vintage Press and Union Bank from publishing further libelous claims.

The judge ruled that “An order be and is hereby made granting perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from further publishing in any form the same or similar or related statements concerning the claimants, in any manner whatsoever as debtors to the 1st defendant”. (Daily Independent)

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