THE High Court dismissed the
application seeking to challenge three expert reports, allegedly
implicating Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), of massive extraction of
funds from Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL).
Judge Salvatory Bongole ruled that the
two points raised by Advocates; Charles Morison, Pius Matovu, Alex
Nguruma and Gasper Nyika, for the defendants, in resisting the reports
lodged by VIP Engineering and Marketing Limited, were unfortunate and
unfounded.
The defendants had alleged that the
three international experts reports were lodged too late in the 490.9m
US dollars (about 1trillion/-) case and completely introducing a new
case with criminal elements that has never been pleaded before.
In his ruling, however, Judge Bongole
agreed with the submissions made by Counsel for the plaintiff, Michael
Ngalo, Respicious Didace,Camilo Schutte, Chris Provenzano and Stephano
Kamala, that the filing of the
reports was within the ambit of the law.
He further pointed out that the claim by
the defendants’ advocate that the reports were introducing new case was
far from the truth because the claims of fraud, conversion, wastes and
money laundering have been pleaded in the plaint of the suit.
The judge took trouble to seek different
definitions of the pleaded claims and concluded that such words
contained criminal elements that needed to be proved and that is why the
court had framed up two issues related to the words in question.
After delivery of the ruling, advocates
for the defendants requested for time to study seven bundles of the
reports before commencement of the hearing.
Though counsel for the plaintiff
objected to the request, Judge Bongole found the reasons for the
adjournment to be sound and pushed forward the hearing of the case to
Monday.
It was submitted that the reports
suggest serious criminal elements implicating defendants, Standard
Chartered Bank, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited, Standard
Chartered Bank Tanzania Limited, Joint liquidators of Mechmar, Wartsila
Nederland BV and Wartsila Tanzania Limited.
Such allegations, according to the
advocates for the defendants, were completely new case and put the court
in a difficult situation and that would make the defendants to defend a
case as contained in the plaint of the suit previously filed and the
new case which has not been pleaded.
However, Counsel for the plaintiff, had
told the court that the filling of the documents in dispute was proper
and legal, as the law allows the parties to file such documents at the
first hearing of the case concerned.
They submitted that the documents do not
introduce any new case as claimed by counsel for the defendants. The
advocates argued that the question of criminal elements has from
beginning been pleaded in the plaint of the suit that was filed in court
in November 2013.
According to the advocates, there is in
the plaint a specific prayer for which the plaintiff is requesting the
court to declare that the defendants committed fraud, money laundering,
corporate waste and oppression, diversion of funds and conversion of
IPTL and VIP property, as a result of their conducts.
In the written statements of defence,
they submitted, the defendants denied all the allegations and put the
plaintiffs to strictly prove of the allegations. They submitted that
following such denial, two issues relating to the allegations were
framed up for determination by the court. “Now, we have brought the
evidence to prove the claims, but they (defendants) want it expunged.
They do not want the court to know the
truth. Why are they panicking now,” Mr Ngalo, the lead counsel queried.
In the reports, the international experts supporting a local investor
found that the bank was “willfully blind” when buying a USD 100 million
plus debt used to enable and conceal an embezzlement scheme in IPTL, a
key Tanzanian infrastructure project.
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