Application For Summary Judgment Granted After Nine-Day Hearing

Zumax Nigeria Limited v. First City Monument Bank Plc [2017] EWHC 2804 (Ch)

At first glance, it may seem something of a contradiction to hold a summary judgment hearing over nine days. In this case the court held that it would have been wrong to shy away from looking carefully into whether there was merit to the defences and other complaints raised by the defendant bank. The court decided that, save in relation to one issue, none of the defences had a real prospect of being established and a trial over many months and at substantial cost would have been wholly unwarranted.

The relevant background to this claim, brought by Zumax Nigeria Limited (Zumax) against First City Monument Bank Plc (FCMB), the successor in title to Zumax's main banker, IMB International Bank Plc (IMB), is: (i) in 2002, IMB had appointed receivers to Zumax over a dispute concerning a debenture, which was settled in 2005 and formalised in a consent order; and (ii) Zumax had brought Nigerian proceedings in 2009 against IMB's former managing director, who had also been a director of Zumax at the relevant time and who the parties agreed was a fraudster.

Zumax's claim against FCMB was that...