Court of Appeal quashes Bank of Ghana’s revocation of UniCredit’s license

A Court of Appeal in Accra has reversed the decision of the Bank of Ghana to revoke the operating license of UniCredit Ghana Limited as a saving and loans company in Ghana.

According to GHOne TV, the court on July 7, 2022, declared the decision of the Bank of Ghana to revoke the license of UniCredit.

The court added that the decision of the Bank of Ghana also constitutes an abuse of power.

“The Court of Appeal has, this morning, declared the decision of Bank of Ghana to revoke the license of Unicredit as an unlawful exercise of its powers and has, therefore … quashed the revocation of Unicredit Ghana Limited’s license which was contained in Bank of Ghana’s notice dated 16th August 2019,” parts of a series of tweets shared by GHOne TV read.

In August 2019, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) revoked the operational license of 23 savings and loans companies including UniCredit Ghana Limited as part of the Financial Sector Clean-up exercise.

The BoG explained that the license of these companies had to be revoked because, “they are insolvent even after a reasonable period within which the Bank of Ghana has engaged with them in the hope that they would be recapitalized by their shareholders to return them to solvency.”

“It is the Bank of Ghana’s assessment that these institutions have no reasonable prospects of recovery, and that their continued existence poses severe risks to the stability of the financial system and to the interests of their depositors,” parts of the statement released by BoG in August 2019 read.

In March 2021, a Human Rights Court ruled that the BoG followed due and lawful process in revoking the license of UniCredit Ghana Limited.

This was after HODA Holdings Limited, (HODA) the majority shareholder of Unicredit Ghana Limited filed a Motion on Notice for Judicial Review to quash the Notice served by the Bank of Ghana which declared UniCredit insolvent and hence revoked its license to operate as a Specialized Deposit-Taking Institution.

Information available to GhanaWeb indicated that the presiding judge, Justice Gifty Agyei Addo dismissed the entire case of HODA Holdings Limited, on the basis that it lacked merit.

The decision came after the Court examined and evaluated the affidavits, exhibits and various submissions by counsel for the parties (Frank Davies Esq. for Bank of Ghana and Adu Mante Esq. for HODA).

Read the tweet by GHOne TV below: