A food import company has sued Barclays Bank Ghana Limited seeking damages and compensation for the bank’s inaction on some transactions which has caused the company to lose a 10 million-dollar contract.
The company, Borealis Foods Ghana Ltd which deals in frozen foods, claims it has lost 40 per cent of the contract sum due to Barclays’ failure to transfer some funds to its client in Turkey resulting in the termination of the said contract.
In its statement of claim filed at the High Court in Accra, Borealis Foods Ghana Ltd said it presented a First Atlantic Bank Cheque with a face value of GHC200,000 to Barclays on November 9, 2015.
Barclays on the next day credited the company’s cedi account but deducted same from the account on December 15, 2015 without any reason or consent.
According to the company, it confronted the bank on the said “unlawful and unreasonable conduct” consequent to which Barclays credited the company’s account on March 29, 2016.
The company thereafter authorized Barclays to convert the said GHS200,000 to 50,000 dollars and to put same into its United States Dollar account with the Bank
It said the Bank was authorized to transfer the said 50,000 dollars to Ozkaya Gida San TIC Ltd STI, a Turkish company it had signed a 10 million-dollar contract with. The transfer was for part payment for goods supplied to the Borealis Foods Ghana Ltd.
Barclays, according to Borealis, presented a SWIFT receipt dated April 7, 2016 to confirm that it had transferred the 50,000 dollars to the Turkish Company, but the company complained it had not received the said funds though Barclays had deducted charges from the transaction.
Borealis says on April 14, 2016, it requested for a statement of its accounts and realized that the Barclays had reversed the 50,000 dollar back into its dollar account, converted the said same into Cedis and had deposited the cedi equivalent back into its Ghana Cedi account.
“The defendant (Barclays) again deducted the GHC200,000 from its Ghana Cedi account and have failed, neglected and refused to credit the Plaintiff’s account,” it said.
It said Barclays breached its duty to transfer funds to the Turkish company, resulting in the termination of the contract.
Borealis Barclays’ “conduct of crediting its account and deducting the amount credited without any reason or the plaintiff’s consent is a breach of the banker customer relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant”.
It is consequently praying the court for general damages and compensatory damages for the loss of the 40 per cent profit from the contract, as well as cost including legal fees.
By Stephen Kwabena Effah|3news.com|Ghana
Twitter @steviekgh_TV3
