Justice Daniel Osiagor of the Federal High Court in Lagos has delivered a judgment in favour of United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) in a N156.03 billion debt recovery case against Stallion Group. The court upheld UBA's appointment of a receiver/manager and validated the bank's right to enforce mortgage securities that were pledged as collateral for the loans. The judgment also prevents the defendants from diverting payments owed to them by government agencies, which could otherwise have been diverted away from UBA's recovery efforts.
The ruling applies to Stallion Nigeria Limited and associated companies within the conglomerate, which is owned by the Vaswani brothers. The court confirmed that while the defendants did not dispute owing the bank money, they had challenged the amount claimed. Justice Osiagor held that account reconciliation between the parties did not erase the underlying debt or invalidate UBA's security rights. The court also confirmed the appointment of Romeo Ese as receiver/manager, granting him authority to take control of mortgaged properties.
The dispute began in October 2023, when UBA first obtained court orders to enforce its security over Stallion assets across Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Kano. In November 2023, Stallion Group contested the bank's figures, claiming it had made substantial repayments and was negotiating a restructuring. The defendants failed to secure a ruling against UBA on any of the issues submitted for determination by the court.
The judgment also dismissed an objection from Barbedos, the 12th defendant, which had argued that its consent was required before the mortgage was created. The court found that Barbedos had failed to establish any legal interest in the mortgaged property.