Chief Don Etiebet, a former minister of Petroleum, wants the highly publicised landmark merger between Access Bank and Diamond Bank nullified.
In the petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Etiebet drew the attention of SEC to the fact that Access Bank and its Managing Director Herbert Wigwe and other executive directors are currently facing criminal charges before the High Court in Shagamu, Ogun State and the High Court in Ikeja, Lagos.
The petition dated March 19, 2019, said his decision to seek for the nullification of the merger was in pursuant to the provision of Section 124 (3) of the Investment and Securities Act 2007 which ‘empowers any person to voluntarily file any document, affidavit, statement or other relevant information in respect of the merger’.
He accused the bank of hiding the financial fraud cases it has from the regulators, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He insisted that if the regulators had got wind of the case which the bank had hidden from them while seeking their approval, the regulators would not have given approval for the merger.
Etiebet, who is a shareholder in Access Bank, had last month petitioned SEC on his position against the merger based on the fraud case his company has against the bank, including another in Ogun State involving a steel company.
He also based his decision to seek the nullification of the merger on the provision of Section 127 of the Investment and Securities Act 2007, which states that “The Commission may revoke its own decision to approve or conditionally approve a small, intermediate or large merger if the decision was based on incorrect information for which a party to the merger is responsible and the approval was obtained in deceit”.
