News / National
NMB founder contests High Court ruling
28 Mar 2019 at 23:34hrs | Views
NMB Bank founder Julius Makoni's loan dispute with his former bank is far from over as the banker-turned clergyman approached the Supreme Court challenging the High Court ruling compelling him to pay back over $1 million advanced to one of his Trusts.
The bank successfully sued Makoni at the High Court and obtained an order compelling him to settle his debt with the bank, in a judgement in which the court rapped the banker for setting up the banking business with the intention to harvest money from the financial institution for himself.
But in the notice of appeal filed by his lawyers, Thompson and Stevenson, Makoni is seeking to set aside the High Court ruling. He argued that the trial court erred at law in sustaining the NMB claim as against him and his trusts.
Makoni further accused the lower court for grossly misdirecting itself in conflating the affairs of his trust, Time Being Cornerstone Trust with his. This, he said, the obligations of the trusts and his to NMB Bank were independent of each other.
"More critically, no evidence was led substantiating notion that his trusts ever received funds from the respondent (NMB Bank) thereby actuating the need to resort to the second (Makoni) and third appellant's (Ryvonne Trust) suretyship and securitisation," he said.
"The court a quo also grossly misdirected itself in dismissing the second appellant's evidence on the back of its anomalous finding that he was dishonest and not a credible witness.
"Such findings are palpably irregular in that the court a quo did not take full cognisance of all the second appellant's evidence and attendant explanations regarding the existence of his independent loan with the respondent which loan the respondent was not relying on."
NMB had sued Makoni for refusing to settle his loans and an overdraft, now pegged at US$1 105 748.90, advanced to his Time Being of Cornerstone Trust, a vehicle he operated to access money from bank.
Makoni and his other trust, The Time Being of Ryvonne Trust, bound themselves as sureties and co-principal debtors.
The bank successfully sued Makoni at the High Court and obtained an order compelling him to settle his debt with the bank, in a judgement in which the court rapped the banker for setting up the banking business with the intention to harvest money from the financial institution for himself.
But in the notice of appeal filed by his lawyers, Thompson and Stevenson, Makoni is seeking to set aside the High Court ruling. He argued that the trial court erred at law in sustaining the NMB claim as against him and his trusts.
Makoni further accused the lower court for grossly misdirecting itself in conflating the affairs of his trust, Time Being Cornerstone Trust with his. This, he said, the obligations of the trusts and his to NMB Bank were independent of each other.
"More critically, no evidence was led substantiating notion that his trusts ever received funds from the respondent (NMB Bank) thereby actuating the need to resort to the second (Makoni) and third appellant's (Ryvonne Trust) suretyship and securitisation," he said.
"The court a quo also grossly misdirected itself in dismissing the second appellant's evidence on the back of its anomalous finding that he was dishonest and not a credible witness.
"Such findings are palpably irregular in that the court a quo did not take full cognisance of all the second appellant's evidence and attendant explanations regarding the existence of his independent loan with the respondent which loan the respondent was not relying on."
NMB had sued Makoni for refusing to settle his loans and an overdraft, now pegged at US$1 105 748.90, advanced to his Time Being of Cornerstone Trust, a vehicle he operated to access money from bank.
Makoni and his other trust, The Time Being of Ryvonne Trust, bound themselves as sureties and co-principal debtors.
Source - the herald
