Should SIC Insurance Appeal Against Judgement Debt Order Obtained By Ivory Finance Against It?

The Business and Financial Times recently published a story containing startling revelations in a lawsuit brought against Ivory Finance by Ital Construct International Limited.

It illustrates perfectly the perfidy of the many amoral individuals and  corporate entities that pepper the landscape in Ghana's financial services sector.

It is a shabby story devoid of any uplifting examples of corporate good governance principles in action, which also lacks any inspiring displays of commendable professionalism that is evidence of  a company culture with ethical  underpinnings.

Simply put, it is a horrific tale of unparalleled greed and egregious duplicity - that even super-inventive Hollywood would have found difficult to come up with as a plot for a film.

Where in the world but Ghana, would lawyers of a financial services company get their employer's clients  to sign an agreement - regarding a court judgment debt order they had obtained in their employer's favour, which was prepared by the said financial services company - without requesting that their client first show the said agreement to their own company's lawyers before signing it?

Surely, that unethical tactic Ivory Finance's lawyers apparently adopted, if proven to be true in court, warrants their being  disbarred by the General Legal Council?

Yet, that is precisely what Ital Construct International Limited's executives are apparently accusing Ivory Finance's corporate lawyers of perpetrating.

Clearly, taking a dip in Ghana's financial services sector, appears to be akin to swimming in shark-infested waters - and one needs to have one's wits about one, when dealing with professionals and corporate entities, in the industry.

The astonishing claim has also been made in open court that a client seeking a loan, apparently informed the company  advancing the loan to it, that a possible impact of the failure by a party it had a contract with, to honour the terms of the said breached  contract, was that it would affect their ability to repay the said loan - yet, instead of refusing to advance the loan for that reason, the financial services company simply asked it to seek a bond from the insurance industry as loan insurance: after which it went ahead to  advance the loan.

Did greed blind them, to their fiduciary obligations, one wonders?

If true, did such unethical conduct, not constitute bad faith - as it meant that relevant due diligence information that would have prompted SIC Insurance to refuse the request for it to issue the bond to insure the loan was hidden from it?

Reading the Business and Financial Times story, one could not help feeling that ruthless financial services sector companies, and unethical professionals, have successfully  ganged up to destroy the partially state-owned  SIC Insurance - and perhaps get their fat-cat cronies in the insurance industry to take over its valuable share of Ghana's insurance market.

There are some who would say that SIC Insurance ought to appeal the judgment debt order obtained by Ivory Finance against it, and take it right up to the highest levels in the courts system, if need be  - as they believe that it can be successfully argued that Ivory Finance and Ital Construct International Limited in effect colluded to defraud it.