CAL Bank v. General Development Company Ltd.

MARIAMA OWUSU, J.A: This is an appeal against the decision of the High Court [Commercial Division], Accra dated 30-7-2010.

The Court gave judgment in favour of the plaintiff against defendant for the reliefs endorsed on the writ of summons.

Dissatisfied with the decision of the High Court, the defendant appealed to the Court of Appeal on the following grounds: [i] The judgment is against the weight of evidence. [ii] The trial judge did not make any proper findings of fact having regard to the evidence and the pleadings. [iii] The trial judge misdirected herself in law by granting reliefs endorsed on the writ of summons. [iv] The trial judge did not give adequate consideration to the Defendant/Appellant’s case. [v] Additional grounds of appeal would be filed upon receipt of the record of proceedings.

The relief sought from the Court of Appeal is a reversal of the judgment in favour of the Defendant/Appellant or in other alternative an order for re-trial.

Before dealing with the arguments advanced in support and against this appeal, I will give a brief background of this case.

The plaintiff by its writ of summons claims against the defendant the following reliefs:

a. Recovery of the amount of €139,011.54 being monies illegally credited to the Defendant’s account with the plaintiff.

b. Recovery of the amount of US$134,658.51 being monies illegally credited to the defendant’s account with the plaintiff.

c. Interest on the said amount of €139,011.54 from February 12, 2009 to date of final payment.

d. Interest on the amount of US$134,658.51 from April 6, 2009 to date of final payment.

e. Costs.

In its 17 paragraph statement of claim which accompanied the writ of summons, the plaintiff averred that, the defendant is its customer at the Takoradi Harbor Branch.

The plaintiff averred further that, following the abrupt resignation of its Takoradi Harbor branch Manager sometime in June 2009, it conducted investigations and an internal audit into the financial activities of the branch.

The investigations established that, between February 12th to May 27th 2009, the branch Manager by fraudulent means credited the accounts of the defendant with the total cedi equivalent of $134,658.51 and €139,010.84 on various date under the pretext of negotiated export documents for the defendant.

It is the case of the plaintiff that at all these instances, there were no export documents negotiated between the plaintiff and defendant.

In spite of the fact tha