HARRISON EDWARD NARTEY MARTIN v. BARCLAYS BANK OF GHANA LIMITED

J U D G M E N T

ADUAMA OSEI

Harrison Edward Nartey Martin, who shall hereafter be called “the Plaintiff”, had been resident in Germany since 1978. In 1990, he opened a foreign exchange account, with account number 1135011, with the High Street branch of Barclays Bank of Ghana Limited, which shall hereafter be called “the Defendant”. As alleged in the Plaintiff’s statement of claim, between the years 1990 and 1994, he deposited the sums of DM 14,000.00 and US$900.00 into the said account through his bankers in Germany. He however withdrew DM 1,000.00 from the account subsequently. On a visit to Ghana in 2006, he tried to ascertain the status of the account but was told by officials of the Defendant bank that no record of the payments he had made into the account could be traced. After making several demands, without success, for his account to be credited with the payments he claimed he had made, the Plaintiff, on the 13th of April, 2011, caused a writ of summons with a statement of claim attached to be issued against the Defendant in the Commercial Division of the High Court, Accra, for reliefs as follows:

“(a) The sum of Thirteen Thousand Deutsch Marks.

“(b) The sum of Nine Hundred United States Dollars.

“(c) Accruing interest on the amounts from 1994 until date of judgment.

“(d) Damages for Emotional Distress”.

In the statement of defence filed on behalf of the Defendant, it denied that the deposits made into the account by the Plaintiff amounted to DM14,000.00 and US$900.00. The Defendant alleged that the payments the Plaintiff made into the account rather amounted to DM11,461.00, and that those payments were made between July, 1990 and 28th June, 1995. Between December, 1990 and August, 1995, however, the Plaintiff made withdrawals amounting to DM11,200.00 from the account. In respect of the dollar deposit alleged by the Plaintiff, the Defendant stated that since the Plaintiff maintained a deutsch mark account, it was impossible to credit the account with dollars. The Defendant alleged that after deducting normal account maintenance fees and transaction charges from the Plaintiff’s account, the credit balance on the account as at September, 1995 amounted to DM11.67. Since the balance of DM11.67 was not sufficient to pay for the customary charges relating to the operation of the account, the same was closed. The Defendant contended therefore that the Plaintiff was not entitled to any of the reliefs claimed by him.

When efforts at settling the ma