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The court has exclusive jurisdiction in civil causes and matters relating to or connected with any labour, employment, trade unions, industrial relations and matters arising from workplace, the conditions of service, including health, safety, welfare of labour, employee, worker and matter incidental thereto or connected therewith.

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Industrial Court orders Polaris Bank to remove Eric Baroras from Debtor List with Credit Bureau, awards N31m as damages


892 Wednesday 21st December 2022

The Hon. President of the National Industrial Court, Hon. Justice Benedict kanyip, PhD, OFR has declared the action of Polaris Bank Ltd in booking expired temporary overdraft facilities (TODs) and advance payment guarantee (APG) (being outstanding balances owed the bank by some of the defendant’s customers) in the name of Mr. Eric Baroras as wrongful, void, invalid, illegal and oppressive.


Justice Kanyip held that Polaris Bank Ltd breached its duty of care owed to Mr. Eric by giving misleading/false and erroneous pieces of information by way of reference to his new employers, and ordered the Bank to immediately remove Mr. Eric’s name from its list of debtors with Credit Bureau.


The Court ordered Polaris Bank Ltd to release forthwith the sum of N151,354:00 being the sum standing to the credit of Mr. Eric after the full and final payment of the granted auto loan; and to hand over, release and deliver the original particulars, documents, receipts or papers and spare key of the car, being the basis of the auto loan to him.


Justice Kanyip ordered Polaris Bank Ltd to pay Mr. Eric the sum of Thirty-One Million, Nine Hundred and Sixty Thousand, Four Hundred and Sixty Maira (N31,960,460.00) only being damages for lost earnings as well as damages for refusing to give, and when it did give, for giving false and misleading work reference in terms of relief within 30 days.


From facts, the claimant- Mr. Eric Baroras had submitted that he was an employee of the Bank from 2008 before his voluntary resignation in March 2013, that he moved his services to another bank, Enterprise Bank and was forced out of the employment as a result of Polaris Bank’s refusal to give a reference on his person on the ground that he was indebted to his former employer, and the same happened with his employment with Union Bank.


Mr. Eric Baroras stated further that while in the course of his employment with Polaris Bank, he handled transactions with some customers who collected temporary overdrafts, and upon their failure to repay the money on the overdraft, the money were imposed on him as his debt and withdrawals were made from his account without his knowledge.


He averred that he was defamed by the bank for sending his name to be published in a credit bureau and the publication was for the whole world to see, which exposed him to ridicule and discredited his profession, urged the court to grant the reliefs sought.


In defense, the defendant’s- Polaris Bank Ltd posited that Mr. Eric while in the employment of the defendant was granted a car loan which he never repaid and the failure to also comply in line with the extant regulation of the Bank on the overdraft granted made the defendant book same as debt on the claimant and contended that in line with Central Bank of Nigeria directives, it gave Mr. Eric’s name to a credit bureau to be published as a debtor to the bank.


The Bank averred further that the main claim of the claim catalogue (a) to (m) in the claimant dwells essentially on defamation which is tortious is not within the jurisdiction of the Court, and Mr. Eric did not prove his entitlement to the claims as required by law.


In reply, the learned counsel to the claimant, Ibrahim Idaiye Esq and 3 others urged the court to affirm its jurisdiction and hold that Polaris Bank’s conduct of imposing, withholding or transferring its customer’s non-performing credit facilities or term loans to the claimant was wrong in law, an unfair labour practice, offensive to the Constitution and contrary to public policy and good conscience.


Delivering the judgment after careful evaluation of the submission of both parties, the Hon. President of the Court, Hon. Justice Benedict Kanyip held that reliefs (g), (h) and (p) cannot be litigated as the Court cannot exercise jurisdiction over the claims bordering on defamation.


Justice Kanyip ruled that there is no exact document to show the guarantee said to be given by Mr. Eric on the payment of overdraft, as a guarantee is not a matter for implication as the Bank seems to think given that a guarantee is a written undertaking made by one person to another to be responsible to that other if a third person fails to perform a certain duty e.g. payment of debt. 


The Court held that for the surcharge to be valid, it requires its own independent hearing, and is not something that the employer can do unilaterally; and declared the conversion of the TODs and APG by the Polaris Bank to personal loans and charging same on Mr. Eric as unlawful, null and void.


Justice Kanyip declared that Mr. Eric is not indebted to Polaris Bank in the course of his employment relationship with the Bank and is entitled to reference letters, proper and accurate evaluation or recommendation by the defendant to a third (3rd) party in future employment.


“The law, as established by case law authorities of this Court, is that there is now an implied term in contracts of employment imposing a duty on the employer to provide work/employment reference in respect of employees; and the work/employment reference must be true, accurate, fair and not misleading. Anything short of this could result in the employer being liable either in contract or in tort.


“In the instant case, I acknowledge that the defendant is a bank, and hence a financial institution. I reiterate that the banking sector is sensitive and so extreme care must be taken how its employees are treated by employers. I found earlier that the reason given by the defendant for refusing to give the work reference is false and misleading.”
 PNICN Ruled.


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