COURT ORDERS CROSSWORD SECURITIES TO PAY EX-WORKER N3.5 MILLION

The plaintiff had approached the court in suit nos. NICN/LA/335/2012 praying the court to order Crossword Securities Ltd., to pay him his nine month salaries, damages and other reliefs.

Ruling on the case, Her Lordship, Justice O.O. Oyewumi ordered the defendant to pay the claimant N3, 494,279.62 Kobo as accumulated salary arrears and N100,000 as cost of litigation. The defendant was in addition ordered to pay the total sum within 30 days or be made to pay with interest of 21 percent until the total sum is liquidated.

The defendant had through her counsel, Cynthia Ezeme argued that the claimant was not paid because he among others failed to properly hand over company properties such as a Honda and Toyota car, a laptop and company ID card in his possession.

She also posited that the claimant was indicted in the fraudulent sales of shares of clients to the tune of N31,133,409.6Kobo and claimed damages in the sum of N36 million.

But ruling on the allegations, the learned judge, Her Lordship, Justice Oyewumi, citing several decided cases, ruled that the defendant failed to prove that the claimant did not properly hand over company properties as alleged.

She explained that the names of the claimant was not mentioned in the document purporting to indict the plaintiff and that the claimant managed accounts of the defendant very well and that the case of purported indictment was nothing but an afterthought. “The claimant had a clean slate”, she said.

On accumulated annual leave bonus, Her Lordship ruled that the argument for accumulated leave failed since the claimant failed to show the court that he was excused from proceeding on leave due to demands of his job as he argued through his counsel, Ukeke Allen Miss.