A judge has temporarily suspended plans by an auctioneer to seize office items belonging to Consolidated Bank of Kenya, pending a hearing of an application by the lender challenging the Sh4.5 million debt at the appellate court.
Justice Anna Ngibuini Mwaure issued the order after the lender informed the court of an application it has preferred at the Court of Appeal, which is set to be heard on Wednesday.
The bank moved back to the Employment and Labour Relations Court after Mbusera Auctioneers identified office desks, computers, and chairs, among other items for seizure, to recover a debt of Sh4.5 million plus its fees.
The auctioneer was hired by the Banking Insurance & Finance Union (Kenya) to recover the money being sought by former employees of the bank who were sacked on May 7, 2018, for flouting the bank’s operations procedures.
“This order for stay, which is interim, will terminate automatically when the Court of Appeal delivers its ruling, and as earlier said these applications will not be listed before this court again since a superior court is already handling a similar application,” said the judge.
The former employees were fired following accusations of receiving cheque deposits and posting them to Lavington Security Ltd., yet the payee details did not match the account name in the bank’s system.
It is alleged that the bank account was opened by a customer under Lavington Security Services and was used to defraud the lender of Sh180 million between 2009 and 2017.
The former workers sued the lender for the termination and the Employment and Labour Relations court agreed that the sacking was unfair and unlawful, in a decision on June 16, this year.
Mbusera Auctioneers says in a notice that it identified reception desks, coffee tables, photocopying machines and printers, 50 executive office chairs, 100 computers, kitchen gas cooker and water dispensers among other items from one of the lender’s branches on October 26.
“We refer to the above matter and to the warrant of attachment and sale entrusted to us. We wish to advise you that we visited the above judgment debtor and we took an inventory of their attachable assets and served them with a proclamation as per the attached copy, we shall inform you more after the expiry of seven days (7) days’ notice but in case they may decide to settle directly with you, kindly note there is our fees to be paid,” the auctioneer said in the notice.
