A Federal High Court in Lagos presided over by Justice Hassan today awarded a cost of N20, 000 against Tincan Island Container Terminal (TICT) for failing to put up appearance in court to move the application it filed in a case brought against it by Glory Shipping Agency and 3 others.
Glory Shipping Agency and 3 others had earlier taken TICT to court over what they called unfair and wrongful charge of demurrage on storage over a fault that was totally TICT’s having delayed transfer of their consignments from TICT to Bollore off dock terminal in Lagos.
When the case came up today for hearing before the court, Mr. Francis Aniezechukwu who entered appearance for Glory Shipping alongside his Counsel were in court fully prepared to pursue the case but the Defendant in that matter, TICT was not represented in court, an action that angered the counsel to the plaintiff, Mr. Kenneth Joshua Esq. to beg the honourable court to allow them go on with their application before the court to give them judgement in the absence of the defendant.
When his plea for his application to be entertained by the court failed, counsel to the plaintiff, Mr. Joshua then pleaded with the court to award a cost against the defendant as it had been proven by their absence that the defendant only made the application to delay the case knowing that they were not willing to pursue the case adding that five months after the case had been filed, they were yet to make progress on the matter.
He further urged the court to put it on record that having delayed the case for five months, further absence of the defendant in the next adjourned date would mean an express approval from the defendant for him to move his application for judgement to be given him in their absence.
At this juncture, Justice Hassan adjourned the matter to the 20th February, 2017 and awarded the cost of N20, 000 against the defendant, an action counsel to the plaintiff did not oppose.
Speaking to our correspondent on the outcome of the court session today, counsel to the plaintiff, Mr. Kenneth Joshua pointed out that the case arose as a result of unfair treatment meted out to his clients by the management of TICT which he said was a wrongful charge of demurrage otherwise called the storage charge.
He noted that that was not the first nor the second neither was it the third time his clients were having that experience adding that having written TICT severally for them to correct their error, which they refused and continued dribbling them.
“At the end of the day, we didn’t get any sufficient response from them, precisely, we were over charged and the mistake was from them, I mean the storage period was as a result of a long and protracted transfer. They were trying to transfer our client’s consignments from Tincan Island Container Terminal to Bollore. So, within the period they did all these transfer, our client by practice cannot effectively clear the goods because by practice he needs to be sure of the fact tht the goods in transit must have gotten to the final destination before he can know the actual payment mode and all that.
“So, they did not factor these into consideration when they were charging demurrage, about five containers were involved they still charged us for the days they were the cause of the delay. So, we said okay, although because we were under pressure, we paid this demurrage just to get those consignments out and said okay, now that we have gotten our consignments out, could you please refund us our money? This money was unfairly charged. They kept dribbling us ad kept on asking for unnecessary documents that are not relevant to the issue to the point that we wrote them letters telling them that if they didn’t comply within a certain period of time, we may be compelled to take a legal action against them.
“We did all that and nothing came out of it, we initiated court action, they still did not come to court and then we filed for motion for judgement. A motion for judgement is an application where you tell the court and say, give me judgement since the defendant has failed to come after the case had been file. That was the stage we were when they got that and they knew that there is fire on the mountain, they came to court to file an application which purports to show that they were now ready to answer the case. That was on November 23rd, 2016, on the last adjourned date. We are here today being 23rd of January, they were supposed to come and move the application they filed but they are not here today”, he said.
He continued,” So, that was why we were angry and said, My Lord, this is a strategy for them to just delay us because they knew if they weren’t around or if they hadn’t file what they filed, by now, we could have gotten judgement against them. So, as it is now, the judge on his own discretion said, okay, they were already here, let us give them more time and the court now granted a cost against them. So, on the next adjourned date, they should come and move their application, after the application, we will now proceed with the real case which is the case we brought against them”.
Joshua however said that going by the case so far, everything was going on as expected as according to him, they had seen the defendant’s defence and that they had not injured their case by the reason of their defence in any way even as he disclosed that the defendants had not denied the fact that they received the plaintiff’s goods just as they had not equally denied that there was a transfer only that they were arguing that the transfer did not frustrate the plaintiff’s effort which according to was a ridicule.
“Transfer in this circumstance means delay in timing, delay in timing is an injury, it is a financial injury, it is frustration to the interest and intent of the consignee. Since they are not denying that, I can confirm that everything is clear and that the lights are green on our part”.
Send your news, press releases/articles as well as your adverts to info@primetimereporters.com. Also, follow us on Twitter @reportersinfo and on Facebook on facebook.com/primetimereporters or call the editor on 07030661526, 08053908817.
