UT and GHATALIA in judicial drama

Court Registrar’s conduct questioned

The protracted legal battle between Unique Trust Financial Service, otherwise known as UT Financial Services took a dramatic turn two Fridays ago (August 28,2009) when the same court registrar who prepared the order paper for bailiffs to execute judgment on UT’s assets had to order the bailiffs mid-stream to abandon the execution

Infuriated by the registrar’s action, the plaintiff, Managing Director of Ghatalia Ltd D. T. Darko has filed a petition to the Judicial Secretary against the registrar.

The Fast Track High Court registrar, Rexford Gyimah acting upon the entering of judgment filed by Ghatalia on January 30, 2009 to appropriate his relives granted by the Appeals court, had issued an order of execution against UT, and asked that some of their properties be confiscated.

Justice Anin Yeboah, then an Appeals Court judge on July 26, 2007, upheld an earlier ruling by the Fast Track High Court that UT’s sale of Ghatalia’s goods was unlawful.

Justice Yeboah also upheld the fact that the Lower Court judge had described the act of UT in selling off the goods without notice to Ghatalia as ‘complete robbery’.

M.D for Ghatalia then caused a writ of Fi Fa to be issued on August 18, 2009 so that UT paid him interest of GH¢ 13,162.46 on the judgment debt of.

Minutes after the Registrar had ordered Execution of the motion on the morning of August 28, 2009, UT’s legal team arrived on the precincts of the Fast Track High Court, and rushed in to seek audience with the registrar.

The bailiffs went ahead to attach the vehicle in which the UT legal team with the court’s seizure notice, but as they moved to the Osu branch of UT to seize more assets of the company the same registrar called them back t abandon the execution.

According to Mr. Darko, upon returning to the Registrar’s office, he met officials of UT, deep in consultation with Mr. Gyimah, he refused to join in as he was asked to, but rather stormed out of the office, “in protest of the surreptitious demeanor of the registrar in attempting to cajole me into an agreement to vacate the execution”

Later, Mr. Darko said the registrar handed him a letter purporting that the judgment debtor had filed a motion of Stay of Execution, “a fact which was not within my knowledge and had never been within my knowledge”.

In a conversation with the Financial Intelligence, Lawyer Christopher Akwasi, of Menka Premo Chambers, solicitors for UT, explained that UT had filed a motion on May 25, 2009, to set aside the Motion of Execution filed by Mr. Darko.

According to him, when it was realized on that fateful morning of August, 28, 2009 that the court registrar had difficulty admitting the motion as a Stay of Execution, “We went ahead to file the motion to stay execution”.

Although sentiments are diverse on this development, one legal insight that runs through comments is that if there had been a motion filed by UT to set aside the Motion of Execution filed earlier on, the Registrar must be aware, and should have notified Ghatalia.