CUSTOMER CLAIMS N135MILLION EXCESS BANK CHARGES FROM DIAMOND BANK

Transnational Haulage Limited, a long standing customer of Diamond Bank Plc has filed court papers pleading a Lagos High Court to among other prayers, order Diamond Bank to refund excess bank charges totaling N74,0403,642.18 plus a mandatory Central Bank of Nigeria’s penalty for non refund of excess bank charges fourteen (14) days after they have been identified and the bank have been informed. Transnational Haulage Limited total claim against Diamond Bank amounts to N135,371,1337.74.

Transnational Haulage asserts in its statement of claim that it, indeed, took several overdraft and lease facilities from the bank which were to be charged at the CBN sanctioned interest rate in Nigeria. Transnational however notes in the statement of claim that the facilities have been paid off. But then, during the life of the facilities it had secured from the bank, it (Transnational) had cause to contest both orally and in writing the incorrectness of the contents of the statement of account the bank had periodically sent to it.

Transnational further informs the court that after noticing the arbitrary charges on its accounts, it engaged the services of Future & Bond, a firm of forensic accounting consultant to carry out a reconciliation of its accounts which it maintains with Diamond Bank.

In one of the two accounts Transnational maintained with Diamond Bank; 0512010000187, between August 2008 and December, 2007, the forensic accounting consultants identified excess-overdraft interest charged amounting to N21,655,712.81 and excess loan interest charged on the account of N12,298,953.97 on a facility of N1,194,381,994.25 the bank had granted the customer. The forensic accounting consultants also identified an excess commission on transaction on the account totaling N31,980.03 while excess management fee of N10,218,336.54 and excess commitment fee of N6,840,750 were also identified. The bank was also alleged to have charged an excess processing fee of N52,500 and an excess Temporary Overdraft Fee of N602,700. The forensic accounting consultants insists in the statement of claim that the bank charged an excess restructuring fee of N1,465,689.06 and an illegal penalty fee of N251,826.49.

The bank’s customer contends that management fee like processing fee is chargeable once upfront on a fresh credit facility or on the enhanced value of a restructured credit facility and not monthly, quarterly or half yearly as the bank charged on its customer’s account.

The customer further asserts that legal fee as a lending fee is not contained in the subsisting CBN Guide to Bank Charges while insisting that commitment fee is only chargeable back-end on the undrawn portion of a loan facility and not on a lease facility as the transaction in question is. The customer argues that whereby a loan facility is fully drawn and utilized by a customer, commitment fee cannot crystallize.

Transnational claims in the court papers that the one percent fee charged on its account cannot be justified because a commercial contract between a bank and its customer cannot contain penalty clause in whatever form or manner but simply obligations and reward which only a court of competent jurisdiction can enforce. The customer therefore affirms that commitment fee does not apply to lease facility but only loan facility. It relied on section 2.2 of the CBN prudential guidelines to argue its position.

In curious revelation in the customer’s statement claim, Transnational reveals that the bank’s decision to use the customer’s account to manage its books by advancing an unsolicited N64.5million loan credit to the customer on February 02, 2008 is unethical. The customer insists that the attendant illegal management fee charged to the account should be repudiated.

The customer further took issue with the extension fee and service charge executed on the account by the bank on the ground that these fees were never agreed with the customer even as they are alien to the subsisting CBN Guide to Bank Charges and therefore considered illegal.

The customer also insists that statement of accounts reprint fee is questionable in the light of the fact that it was due to the bank’s inability to provide the periodic statement of account that led to the demand by the customer coupled with the anxiety of excess and illegal bank charges surreptitiously laid into the account by the bank. This is just as the customer frowns at service charge deducted from the its account. The customer considers this charge as illegal.

Diamond Bank, in its statement of defence, agreed that there was an excess charge of N497,855.26, the bank explained that this was as a result of the application of two percent management fee on the sum of N510,916,827 as against N486,024,063.51 being outstanding balance on the account as at 13 October, 2006.

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the matter