The legal advisers to Vigeo Power Limited, majority shareholders of Benin Electricity Distribution Company Plc, have begun contempt proceedings against the Federal Government’s Bureau of Public Enterprise.
It described the BPE as defaulters involved in the illegal takeover of BEDC.
BEDC in a statement said that the law firm of Kunle Adegoke (SAN), lawyers to Vigeo Power Ltd, said the contempt proceedings had become imperative.
“It is on record that the total shareholding of the BPE and the Ministry of Finance in BEDC is just 40 percent making the two of them minority shareholders which pale into insignificance in the face of the 60 percent shareholding held by Vigeo Power Limited, our client,” the lawyers explained, according to the statement.
The law firm stated that “It is said that in the worst form of brigandage unknown to Companies and Allied Matters Act and the shareholders’ agreement dated August 21, 2013, which is subsisting among the parties, the BPE, using Fidelity Bank Plc as a front, has decided to take over a company that is not indebted to either BPE or Fidelity Bank using the naked force of state power.”
BEDC’s legal advisers argued that contrary to the impression sought to be created by BPE in the publication referred to above, Vigeo Power Limited’s 60 percent shareholding in BEDC was never collateralized in any loan transaction with Fidelity Bank Plc or any other financial institution.
