Legal advisers to Vigeo Power Limited, majority shareholders of Benin Electricity Distribution Company Plc (BEDC), have commenced contempt proceedings against defaulters forillegal takeover of the company.
The law firm of Kunle Adegoke (SAN), lawyers to VigeoPower Ltd, said the contempt proceedings has become imperative because the attention of its client had been drawn to a publication issued by the Bureau of Public Enterprises ((BPE) on Wednesday, the 13th day of July, 2022, in which it laboured unsuccessfully to justify its attempts at illegally taking over the BEDC Electricity Plc despite the orders of injunction issued by the Federal High Court, Abuja on the 8th day of July, 2022 in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1113/2022 between Vigeo Power Limited v. Fidelity Bank Plc & 7 Ors.
“It is on record that the total shareholding of the Bureau of Public Enterprises and the Ministry of Finance in BEDC is just 40 percent making the two of them minority shareholders which pales into insignificance in the face of the 60 percentshareholding held by Vigeo Power Limited, our client,” the lawyers explained.
The law firm remarked that, “It is sad that in a worst form of brigandage unknown to Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) and the Shareholders’ Agreement dated the 21st day of August, 2013 which is subsisting among the parties, the BPE, using Fidelity Bank Plc as a front, has decided to take over a company that is not indebted to either BPE or Fidelity Bank using the naked force of state power.”
According to the legal advisers, “Contrary to the impression sought to be created by BPE in the publication referred to above, Vigeo Power Limited’s 60 percent shareholding in BEDC was never collaterised in any loan transaction with Fidelity Bank Plc or any other financial institution.”
They contended that, “It is also the case that it is unknown to CAMA or the shareholder’s agreement subsisting among the parties that BPE can, by unilateral declaration, dissolve the board of BEDC and appoint its own preferred persons to take over the management of BEDC. Were that to be allowed, it means any minority shareholder can unilaterally take over the management of a company under the guise of enforcing a non-existent loan transaction.”
