Prominent Lagos lawyer, Newspaper sued for libel

A prominent Lagos lawyer, Chris Okunowo and a widely circulated national newspaper in Nigeria have been taken to court by two international business men, Ola Rosiji and Anil Ahluwalia  in a N520 million libel suit against the defendants.

The suit, LD/ADR/276/2015, filed before a Lagos High Court, Igbosere, Lagos, by the claimants, is asking for damages in the sum of N500 million and N20 million as legal fees for libelous publications against them.

The Applicants are also seeking for an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants, whether by themselves, servants or privies from further publishing, or causing to be published the said libel, defamatory or injurious publications.

In a statement of claim deposed by the Claimants, they alleged they were defamed by a publication titled: “$8.8million Fraud: Lawyer Faults Briton’s Extradition Plan”, published on page 12 of June 2, 2015 and written by one Ramon Oladimeji, an employee of the said newspaper, who is also joined in the suit.

They alleged that in a bid to exert undue pressure, intimidate undermine and forestall them from taking steps to recover the money which they claimed were unlawfully obtained by one British citizen, Deepak Khilnani from the company, Okunowo contracted the said newspaper to publish the statements to create false impression to the public that they (the claimants) are opportunistic and devious persons who engaged in several illegal schemes and are employing oppressive actions against Khilnani.

They further claimed that the contents of the publication as alleged were sponsored by the lawyer, which were completely malicious, extremely offensive and calculated to disparage their image, integrity and business.

According to the applicants, in 2007, they promoted and formed Green Fuels Limited (GFL) as a joint venture between them (Rosiji, Ahluwalia), Comcraft Group and Deepak Khinani (a Briton and former Director of GFL). “GFL was formed to engage in the business of supplying compressed natural gas to industries in areas where piped natural gas is not available.

“On 9th October 2007 GFL was incorporated with an authorised share capital of N10, 000,000.00 dividend into N10 million ordinary shares of N1 each. The Claimants were the initial subscribers of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of GFL and they both equally held 1,250,000 units of shares. They were also members of the Board of Directors. However, Khilnani ran the day to day affairs of GFL.

“Deepak Khilnani also had interests in several companies within and outside Nigeria including Industrial Energy (African) Limited (hereafter “IEAL”; formerly known as Green Fuels Holding), Gentec Energy Plc and CNG Technologies (CNGT). The companies were major business partners to GFL and supplied machineries valued at over USD$ 14,202,780.00 over the course of four years.

“On 20th January 2010, the Board took a decision and increased GFL’s share capital to 150 million ordinary shares. The now increased shares were re-allotted with 75% shares given to IEAL (one of Deepak Khilnani’s companies) and 35,000,000 shares allotted to Rosiji. This meant that Rosiji was to hold 36,250,000 shares (inclusive of his initial 1,250,000 already held upon incorporation).

“In view of the fact that Khilnani owned and controlled IEAL, he was appointed as its representative in the Board of Directors of GFL. Therefore, he represented IEAL in the Board of GFL and was also GFL’s controlling mind and Director”, the claimants stated. They further alleged that while he oversaw the affairs of GFL, GFL had business dealings and transactions with IEAL, Gentec and CNGT (all owned by him) and that these transactions were not always done at commercial arm’s length.

The claimants continued: “It was later discovered that Deepak Khilnani defrauded GFL of huge sums of money through the instrumentality of these business dealings with IEAL, Gentec and CNGT as it was discovered that he connived with IEAL, Gentec and CNGT to over invoice equipment supplied to GFL and manipulated its books.

“Owing to these and other discoveries made by the board regarding the management of GFL by Khilnani, Rosiji, as the Chairman of the Board reported a case of fraud to the Nigeria Police who conducted a thorough investigation.

“During the course of the investigation, it was discovered that Deepak Khilnani was previously convicted and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment by a London Crown Court upon indictment of 10 counts of false accounting, two counts of making false statement to an Auditor and one count of trading with intent to defraud a creditor.

“Khilnani was subsequently invited to the Police Station. And following the conclusion of investigation by the Police, a criminal charge was filed on 4th of July 2014 before the Magistrate Court of Lagos with Khilnani as one of the accused persons on six counts of obtaining by false pretense, stealing as a director of a company and conspiracy punishable under sections 323(1), 285(8), 321(1) and 321(3) of the Lagos State Criminal Law 2011. He was reported to have evaded the court’s arraignment.

“On 30th April 2015, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) of Lagos State took over the prosecution of the offences and filed an information against Mr. Khilnani at the Ikeja Division of the High Court of Lagos State for offences bordering on stealing, fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, amongst others in suit No. ID/1544c/15; Lagos State v Deepak Khilnani & Anor. Again, he evaded arraignment”, the claimants alleged”.

The defendants are yet to file their reply to the claims and the court has not also fix a date for the hearing.